


The Shape of Things to Come

by InFlagranteDestiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Complete, Long, M/M, Post-Hell, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2466644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFlagranteDestiel/pseuds/InFlagranteDestiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel and his team are tasked with rescuing the Righteous Man from Hell. They do, and Castiel takes him to a remote farmhouse to heal -- warded from both angels and demons. Healing isn't as easy as either of them would have thought, though, and getting out of Hell is just the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shape of Things to Come

**Author's Note:**

> Absolutely GORGEOUS art for this story can be found here: [Way Off Canon](http://tmblr.co/ZRqkWr1THxm1a). Bojo outdid herself, and she was so great to work with. She "got" my story right away and her art captures her understanding. Go look at it, like it, love it, reblog it!

I.

Castiel had been foolish to think that saving Dean Winchester would be easy. Later, after much prayer and thought, he would come to believe that it had been his Father’s subtle way of humbling him. He looked within himself, and he saw that he had been prideful in thinking it would be a simple task. 

It was not the siege of Hell that had been the hardest part. He had selected his task force personally, the best fighters he could think of. Uriel, vicious and righteous. Hester, practical and inexhaustible. Inias, the quiet one who saw any cracks in the plans and then poured himself into them. 

He had been to Hell before. Only once, but he had been there. It had been centuries, and the memories were still fresh to him. The stench had been unbearable. That was the first thing he noticed. He didn’t feel heat or humidity, not as a human would have, so those did not bother him. No, it had been the stench. There was the stench of offal, of blood and rot, but there was a much more pungent scent that permeated the place. It was the stench of despair. That was the real linchpin of Hell. Despair. It was a place that thrived on it. The economy and architecture of the place were founded in despair. The streets were paved with it. The inhabitants wore it. 

There had been a single quiet moment as they entered one of its gates. They had found a remote entrance. He didn’t want to do this with any panache or pomp. The mission was to save Dean Winchester, and Castiel would do that – but it would not be a suicide mission. And so, they crept into Hell on a poorly guarded outpost. They smote the weary sentinels, and there was a single quiet moment. 

Castiel looked down at the poor souls at his feet. They were not yet demons. They weren’t even close, really, all things considered. But still, they were foul. The light of their souls had dimmed and taken on a sickly gray-green hue. The shimmering visage of their human forms had charred and singed. He wondered about these men, what they had done in life to end up damned, what they had done in Hell to end up in this shack. 

“Do not feel sorry for them,” Uriel said, appearing beside him. He straightened his shirt cuffs. 

“Our Father created them, same as He created the righteous,” Castiel said, turning one of them over with his toe. The creature’s eyeholes gaped and smoked, its mouth slack and melted. “But somewhere along the line, something went so terribly wrong.” 

“They squandered His love, that’s what it boils down to. Now, speaking of squandering things, I believe we have a mission.” 

“If I weren’t feeling introspective, I might call that blasphemy,” Castiel said. 

“Glad I caught you in a moment, then, brother.” Uriel clapped him on the shoulder and they began their long, slow trudge toward the nearest settlement. 

The backwoods demons guarding this unknown pus bubble finally noticed four angels appearing on their turf and smiting their lackeys. They charged at the angels and were quickly dispatched. This scene was repeated over and over, first through these outposts and then into small villages. This was not the hard part. This was the completely expected and prepared-for part. They knew that whatever the reason – even if they didn’t know why the angels were there – the demons would fight them at every turn, on principle alone. Few, if any, of the abominations they encountered would know why they were there. Of those, no one would care in the least. They were there to save one lousy human, and because they were so ensconced in Hell’s ever-present waft of despair, they would never have the perspective to see how rare and beautiful that was. 

Castiel had seen empires rise and crumble. He’d stood by, silent and invisible, as humans discovered all the little clues to survival that the Father had laid for them. Fire. Wheels. Planting. Metals. He had spent many thousands of years fighting demons. And in all this, he had never heard of a rescue mission from the Pit. He had never known a human to be pulled from Perdition. Until he heard the name Dean Winchester. 

As soon as he had heard the mission, he had snuck back in time to see this man he was to be saving. He picked an arbitrary date and traveled there, found Dean Winchester in a roadside dive off of I-80. He was seated at the bar, a small glass of whiskey and a larger glass of beer in front of him. There were so many souls in that bar, crushing and jostling against each other. And this man’s shone brighter than all of them. It wasn’t only light, but also resilience. He was pained. There had been a fight and his brother was leaving for college. Dean took refuge in this bar and was ignoring the continuous buzzing of his cell phone. Amid this, though, amid his anguish and uncertainty, his soul was unlike anything Castiel had ever witnessed. He slipped away from the bar and back to his station and he prayed, told his Father that Dean Winchester’s soul was one of the finer ones he had ever seen. So he understood. It wasn’t some idle whim that Dean Winchester must be saved. Castiel didn’t know the full scope of the mission, but if anyone was to be involved, it was this man. It was not hard to see that Dean Winchester was worthy of saving.   
***

“Why this one?” Uriel asked. 

They were trudging through what might have been called a forest. The trees were blackened, leafless, and slimy, the ground underfoot crunched with shattered bones, but it could be called a forest. It was, like all things, a perversion of what might be found in Heaven or on Earth. The Gardens of Heaven were, of course, pure manifestations of beauty. There was nothing like them anywhere. They were grown and cultivated in perfect alignment with the Spheres. They _were_ the Spheres, in a way. And the Father’s chosen gardener tended to them with hands of such pure love that it was no wonder they were so beautiful. Earth had its standouts as well. Castiel had always favored the lands around the Pacific. From the desolate, rocky northern lands to the tropical ones, there was something about the forests there that he thought most resembled the Spheres, pale though the comparison was. 

He paused to think about this before answering Uriel, for his first instinct was to slam his brother against on of those slimy trees and ask him if he bothered to do a single moment’s worth of research. 

“I don’t know,” Castiel said. “It is not for us to know. But I did travel to observe the boy, and his soul is truly captivating.” 

“Is that so?” he asked, voice edged with the mean kind of mirth that was his specialty. 

“That is so, brother, and I would remind you that our Father tasked us with observing and protecting His creation.” 

If angels were to have disagreements – which, technically, they were not – then this would be the disagreement between Uriel and Castiel. Uriel was not as astounded at the Father’s Earthly endeavor as Castiel was. He did not find the wonder in those simple things, those humans. He did not marvel at the nuances and contradictions that comprised human thought and existence. He found their ingenuity unremarkable. Had anyone asked Castiel, he would have said that Uriel’s diffidence was blasphemy. It did not honor the Father to sneer at His most intricate creation. Certainly, the wonders of Heaven were myriad. But the rough edges of humanity, the parts of Earth that were the most raw and untamed – those were the Father’s true masterpieces. Those were the creations that He had let run wild, the ones He had let go of and allowed to breathe. Perhaps that was why Castiel found Dean Winchester’s soul so captivating. 

“I observe, and I protect,” Uriel said. “But I do not pretend to come close to understanding what He ever saw in them.” 

“Indeed you do not,” Castiel conceded. He sped up through the forest, past Inias and Hester, locked in their own intense conversation several paces ahead. They looked at him as he stalked past, startled at his speed and determination. They called to him and he did not acknowledge it. 

He was nearly relieved when they came to a small outcropping of buildings, a few shacks huddled around a town square whose centerpiece appeared to be a dais with a rack. A demon was torturing someone there, as a crowd looked on in dispassionate revulsion. Castiel and the others dispatched them all quickly, burning the demons to chunky ash and scattering their human captives to the winds. 

Briefly, Castiel wondered what was worse in this place: inhabiting a town run by demons, or living in exile in these filthy woods. It was a passing thought, though, replaced once more by his singularity of purpose, his dedication to his mission.

***  
Weeks and weeks passed with no sign of Dean Winchester. They found the settlement he was in, but he was obscured to them. The most they knew was the location and that he worked for Alastair. He was clouded by the filth and the muck that ran through the streets. Castiel could not sense his soul or hear his prayers. 

According to Uriel – and most others of his kind – he was not to pity the souls in Hell. They had transgressed, had shunned the Father’s love or squandered His gifts and they had made their beds. But Castiel saw them as they had been before all this. He wondered about them and yes, he pitied them. It wasn’t a kind of sanctimonious pity. Rather, it was the sort of heartbreaking pity that came from being able to see the glimmer of their former selves. Not all angels could see this in humans, or if they could, they ignored it. But it had always been something Castiel could do. 

Still. Pity or no, they were knee-deep in this place and they wouldn’t be able to stay hidden for long. Word had spread that four angels were cutting their way through Hell and sparing none that came to their paths. They would have fetched a pretty price. 

They were holed up in a derelict tenement, the walls plastered with warding sigils and demon repellents. Even with all of these, the power of four angels could be felt. The damned circled the building, stared up curiously at it. Cocked their heads as they heard them inside, their magnificent voices muffled and muted but still filtering through. No wonder, either. They were pure, in this filthy place. 

“There are few places he could be,” Uriel reasoned. “We know he works for Alastair. Why don’t we pay Alastair a visit?” 

“No,” Castiel said. “He’ll sense us coming. We won’t have the time or the resources to fight demons, put up with Alastair’s trifling, _and_ locate Winchester.” 

“Element of surprise?” Inias offered. 

“Castiel’s right,” Hester said. “It would ruin any progress we’ve made.” 

Inias nodded, satisfied with this answer, but Uriel _harrumphed_ and went to the window. He scanned the street below through the dripping sigils, as though Dean Winchester might just walk by at any time. Castiel, weary and tense from battle, secretly prayed that would be the case. 

It was another full week after that, a week of interminable gritty evening, of stinking garbage and that cloud of desolation. Castiel could actually see it, a fog that rolled in and out, though not on any meteorological schedule. The mist was nearly sentient, a pulsing, live culmination of all the souls that had ever been and ever would be. He wondered what Hell was like for that mist. If any of his companions saw it, they said nothing. Perhaps it was one of those things: Each of them saw it and thought they were the only one, so said nothing for fear of appearing strange. 

The argument cropped up more and more – Uriel wanting to storm the gates of Alastair’s compound and search for Winchester, Castiel and Hester arguing against it. There were too many variables, too many complications, too many, too much of everything. The only thing they were short on was resources. Castiel had not questioned why he had not been told to assemble a larger team, or why one had not been offered him. He could only assume that resources were spread thin. After all, something was certainly brewing, though Castiel knew not what.

“I wish we would find him,” Inias said on one such in-between evening. “Not just because it is the mission and it is the Father’s will, but because it will mean we can leave this terrible place.” It was somewhat refreshing to hear this perspective, rather than the petulant arguing from Uriel. 

Inias had such a soft voice and gentle disposition. Castiel had known him for many long centuries, had fought alongside him and observed humans with him. He put his arm around the other’s shoulder. 

“All in good time,” Castiel said. “It is all on the Father’s timetable, not ours.” 

Inias smiled up at him. “Yes, thank you. Sometimes I need reminding of such things.” 

“Perhaps our Father is telling us to take some initiative,” Uriel said, his voice biting with the sound of annoyance. 

Castiel did not engage with him, thinking it unwise, as it would complicate things. He merely excused himself, found the cleanest corner he could in their little hovel, and sat down to pray. He prayed for the strength to endure Uriel’s pot-stirring, to endure the waiting among the filth of Hell, to endure the uncertainty that formed in his mind. He prayed that Dean Winchester would not be too far gone when they did find him. He prayed for all sorts of things. 

And then, at the moment when his hope hung on by the barest gossamer thread, he heard it. Dean Winchester’s voice, calling out in prayer. They all heard it, heads snapping to attention, light manifesting through their eyes and ears and mouths, wings expanding and breaking the glass, cracking the building apart. It crumbled beneath them as they let out a war cry from Heaven and charged through the filth toward their quarry.   
***

Through the streets of Hell, the denizens looked up at them as they flew. And it was no wonder. They were brighter, cleaner, and more pure than anything in that stinking burg. The decaying souls below gawked up, their grimy faces illuminated by the angelic light. Uriel let out a fierce cry that shook buildings, cracked streets, and made the people cringe with fear. They shielded their eyes and crouched down and trembled. 

The prayer was fading and Castiel knew that if it died completely before they found him, then they would be exposed with no echo to run toward. He bore on faster than he ever had. Demons attempted to catch them but could not even come close, immolating as soon as the light touched them. The bodies sifted to the ground, breaking apart mid-air, and arriving as clouds of disparate ash. 

Over low tenements and crumbling brick, past hovels and shacks, and then finally they were out of the town. Warehouses appeared on the horizon, and he homed in on one of these. Dean Winchester’s voice echoed from it and if Castiel looked hard enough, he thought he could see the boy’s soul through the grated window. 

Alastair’s people were ready for them, a row of demons encircling the building. Castiel, Uriel, Inias, and Hester touched down silently, as though they were stepping upon virgin grass instead of the crushed bones of the damned. 

A demon came forward, a new-made one, skin sloughing off his bones and meat in ribbons. 

“You have no business here,” he said. “Go back to guiding little children over bridges.” 

Castiel was ready to talk to him, but Uriel broke rank and lashed out at him. He tore the demon’s head from his body and crushed it between his hands, throwing the pieces like coconut shells at the row of demons before them. The creatures quailed a bit but did not move. Alastair rewarded loyalty, Castiel had heard, and this was indeed a moment to prove loyalty. 

“I believe you all know that there is but one outcome in this,” Castiel said. His voice reverberated off the low, stone building. “We will enter this building, and we will get the soul we came to collect.” 

“Fuck off!” someone cried from down the row of demons. Inias shot a beam of light at him and he crumbled. 

“We can kill all of you or spare you. The choice is yours.” 

A few nervous glances shimmered down the row. Uncertain, unfaithful creatures. They broke from the line and ran toward the countryside. Alastair himself would do far worse than the angels if he ever found them, but Castiel decided there wasn’t time to have that conversation with them. 

He glanced at his companions, and with one mind, they all prayed. They called for aid from their brethren, called out to anyone able to come to them. Moments passed with nothing to mark them but the crackle of tension between the four angels and the hundreds of demons. Then, the sound of a hundred freight trains whistled from above. Angels were descending upon them, dozens and dozens of them, bearing light and singing their battle hymns. 

They came to rest as silently as the first four had, settled behind Castiel and his team. It was a quiet, fearsome regiment that came to their aid, all with placid faces and strong bodies. They were ready for a fight, ready to carry out the Father’s will. 

They dispatched the remaining demons with relative ease. It felt good and right. Castiel felt righteousness and clarity flowing through him, electric, barely contained. This was what needed to happen. Dean Winchester would be Saved. It had been decreed, and the order had been handed to him, and he would do it. 

The row of demons was decimated. Their charred parts lay in heaps on the ground – legs, arms, torsos, heads, and fractions thereof. Castiel was covered from wing to wing in gore and flaking, ashen skin. He stood a brief moment in front of the unblocked door, savored his accomplishment. He hoped it was not prideful to feel nothing but gratitude toward his Father. It was His will, after all, that gave Castiel the strength to do this. 

Hester let out a war cry similar to Uriel’s earlier one. She pulled at the door and ripped it off, entered into the building. Her hair seemed nearly on fire. Castiel followed her, and he felt Inias close behind him, Uriel’s sharp eyes covering the rear. 

It was chaos inside the building. Demons tried to keep order, half-demons tried to defend this putrid fortress, and in cells and chambers all around, the damned human souls called out to be saved. Castiel’s heart ached for them, wanted so badly to ease their suffering and lead them to God’s light. But that was not the mission. 

He burned through demons and their lackeys at an alarming rate. A trail of dozens followed behind the four of them. 

And then Alastair stepped into their view. He leered at them and wheezed out some noise that might have been construed a laugh. 

“You won’t save him. Even if you get your pious little hands on him, he won’t be capital-S-Saved, not really.” 

“The Lord God, Creator of all, has willed that Dean Winchester is to be saved,” Castiel growled. 

“Hmm, has He?” 

Castiel drew his hand back, ready to smite Alastair into next week, but he felt Hester’s small hand on his. 

“I’ll take care of him,” she said. “You get the boy.” 

Castiel nodded, needed no further urging. He ducked past Alastair and charged down a hallway. A few other angels had surrounded him, joined in the fray with Hester leading. He had faith in his brothers and sisters. 

The building was a labyrinth of hallways and cells. There was no end to it, merely turning in on itself over and over. But through all this, he heard that voice again. Dean Winchester’s prayers, as strong as his soul itself. The voice got louder and then Castiel could see the dingy glow of his soul. He would know it anywhere. He charged down the hall, and finally, finally there he was. 

And this was the moment when Castiel’s pride kicked into overdrive. This was the point at which he sighed, smiled, and held his hand out to Dean Winchester. He announced that he was here to save this poor child who had gotten bamboozled into something he couldn’t fully understand, who was getting a second chance for a bigger part in God’s own plan. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance? 

Not Dean Winchester. He said _no_. Castiel told him that he was there to take him out of Hell and he said no. Castiel just stood there for a moment unsure what to say. One would think that showing up to rescue someone from Hell would be a showstopper. 

Inias found him, told him that many of their brothers and sisters had been slain. For a brief, selfish moment, Castiel couldn’t help but let a sharp blade of wrath course through him. Who knows how many of his compatriots had been slain in the few minutes since he argued. 

“We insist,” Castiel said. He grabbed Dean’s shoulder and pulled him close, enveloped him in his wings. 

With a cry to his brothers and sisters, he ascended. There was no time to regroup, no time for anything. After weeks of waiting, he had found this boy and there was no opportunity to sit there and reason with him as to why it was a good thing he was being taken out of Hell. 

A human soul, for all its plasticity, was still a fragile thing, relatively speaking. It could withstand a lot, and Dean’s certainly had, but existing on Earth outside of a human body was next to impossible. The soul and the body worked in tandem, the biological meeting the spiritual. They nourished each other. The little soul threads twined with the veins and sinews, giving them life as the blood flowed and gave the soul life. Food was eaten, the tastes and smells and textures coming together to interest the soul, while nerve endings sent signals to the brain. Touch and sensation, a hand brushing over another or a breath tickling an ear or a lock of hair falling across a face – all of it amounted to the necessary health and wellbeing of a soul. 

A soul, however, could not simply be shoved unceremoniously back into a body. A sick soul in a healthy body would be useless. He would first have to heal this soul. He had done this before, of course. It wasn’t a common thing to heal a soul, but it happened often enough throughout human history that many angels knew how to do it. 

Before departing for Hell, the team had made certain arrangements. There was an empty farmhouse not far from where Dean Winchester’s body was buried, and this was to be their little hospital of sorts. They warded it against demons and even other angels, against prying human eyes and all other creatures that might take too much notice of goings-on. It had been agreed prior to departure that whoever got to the boy first would be the one to take him to this place and lock the door behind them. The others of the team would remember where it was, but they would be unable to see it fully or to enter it. The process of healing a soul was, by necessity, not a group effort. Privately – and he hoped his Father did not find it to be evidence of further pride – Castiel knew it had to be either himself or Inias to do this. Uriel came dangerously close to treason and blasphemy in his speech regarding humans, and Hester simply lacked the skills to heal. Castiel was no featherbrain. He knew the score. 

They returned to Earth, and Castiel transported his precious cargo to the farmhouse. Once inside, he shut the door and drew the necessary sigils on the inside. It was just him and Dean in there now, whatever that might mean.  
***

His first order of business had been to craft a makeshift body for Dean. It was an illusion at best, a hologram of sorts that would allow his soul to survive. He formed this from the dirt in the cellar floor, from dust motes on the windowsills, collected rainwater from an old bathtub sitting under a leaky roof. All in all, it wasn’t that different from a human body, chemically speaking. 

This was a touch that he knew Uriel or Hester never would have come up with. They would put the soul in a glass jar and pray and intone solemn Enochian incantations. They didn’t understand the nuances. They had observed humans, as he had, but they had not watched in the same way. Castiel knew they liked familiarity. Dean Winchester would want to see his body. He would need some touchstone of reality. 

He crafted the body, clothed it in pajama pants and a soft t-shirt, and laid it on a little palette on the ground. He sat, waiting and praying. He had not heard any word from his brothers and sisters, for there was interference as a result of the sigils. He hoped that they were safe, of course, but secretly he was enjoying the silence that came from not having their voices surrounding him at all times. 

The silence near the farmhouse was a particularly intense type of silence, as well. It was far from busy roads or even farms with loud equipment. These places were becoming more and more rare on Earth, and Castiel relished them for their stillness. He watched and waited here, enveloped in silence, eagerly anticipating the moment when Dean would awake from his rest. 

When it finally happened, when Dean stirred and his eyes fluttered, Castiel straightened up in the chair where he sat. He cleared his throat and waited, expecting that Dean would be disoriented, confused, have questions about what had happened and why he was there. What he had not anticipated was that Dean would try to attack him.  
***

II.

He awoke with a scream, his body immediately flailing up and off the bed. His eyes were unfocused and he lashed out wildly, arms seeking any sort of purchase. They found it in the form of Castiel’s jacket lapels, and in his surprise, he got dragged to the ground. Dean’s eyes gained focus, and so did his attack, his hands finding Castiel’s neck and squeezing. It caught him off-guard, and he succumbed for a moment before blasting Dean back, pinning him to the opposite wall with the flick of a wrist, and standing before him. 

“Dean Winchester, you have been saved.” 

“Fuck you. Who the fuck are you? What are you? What is this? I want to see Alastair. I did everything that slimy bastard wanted. I was a good employee. I—”

“Silence!” Castiel roared, coming close to using his true voice, which would have shattered the house on this plane. 

Dean was too surprised to fight him, his mouth opening and closing before he settled on pursed lips and a scowl. 

“The Lord has chosen you—”

“The _Lord_?” Dean crowed, laughing. When he laughed, it sounded more like demon laughter than human laughter. Castiel didn’t know how bad it was. 

He began an incantation in Enochian, a purifying prayer, but Dean’s laughter cut through it. It chilled Castiel to his core. 

“I will not tolerate blasphemy,” he said once he gathered his wits. He chanted the Enochian equivalent to the Lord’s Prayer, and Dean quelled enough for Castiel to let him down. He didn’t need to be pinned there like some creature. 

He slid down and stared at Castiel, glowered really, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. “What did you do to me?” 

“I invoked the name of the Lord God, the Alpha and Omega. I am one of His servants, and we have saved you—”

“Saved me?” 

“From Perdition,” he said, slow, because clearly Dean was traumatized if he couldn’t understand from what. 

“Yeah right. Good one, Alastair, you motherfucker. Where is he? Come on,” Dean said, gesturing with his fingers. “Show me who you really are.” 

Castiel couldn’t show his true form without damaging Dean’s ersatz body or the safe house, but he allowed a bit of light to shine through his eyes and mouth, and from his fingertips. Dean cowered and curled more into himself as he did this, looking up at Castiel with a mixture of fear and utter hatred. 

“This isn’t Hell?” 

“Does it look like Hell?” 

“No, but Hell can look like a lot of things.” 

“I suppose that is true,” Castiel said. 

True for Dean, at any rate. To an angel, Hell was nothing but a series of unpleasant smells, sounds, and sights. It was the acrid scent of desperation, betrayal, fear. He didn’t see it the way Dean saw it. To a human, it was like a particularly awful version of Earth. They needed that illusion to comprehend it. It wouldn’t be horrifying if they couldn’t see or understand it, and in the angelic way of seeing, with being able to see and smell and hear it all at once, they would never be able to process the horror of it. It would be like driving through a tunnel at night. 

Castiel took a step closer, reached out to touch Dean, but Dean shrank back. 

“You – your smell – it’s like—” Castiel never got to find out what it was like. Dean threw up at his feet, a thick sludge of bile. 

He withdrew his hand and stood back. 

He waved his hand and the vomit disappeared. Dean looked grim, eyes going from the now clean spot on the floor to Castiel. 

“We left him there,” he said. 

“Who?” 

“The kid in the room with me, you clueless prick.”

There _had_ been another one in the room. His soul was far worse off than Dean’s was. Castiel hardly recognized it as human. 

“I am sorry,” he said. “My orders were not—”

This sparked Dean into action. He looked visibly ill as he did so, but he pushed forward and grabbed Castiel’s coat. At this range, Castiel could now smell him, too, and he still had the choking reek of Hell on him, thick and cloying like rotting meat. 

“You made me leave him,” Dean said. “Alastair is down there flaying that kid.”

Castiel pushed him back once more, pinned him against the wall with invisible force. “I am sorry, Dean. There are many souls in Hell, and my orders were to retrieve yours. Not any others.” 

“Who the fuck are you, anyway? What gives you that right to decide?” 

“I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord, and I do not decide – He does.” 

“Oh, so you were just following orders? Where have I heard _that_ before?” 

“Would that not be what you would say, if confronted with any of the souls you yourself tortured under Alastair’s tutelage?” 

Dean growled low in his throat and strained against his invisible bonds. They held fast, though, and Castiel wasn’t even breaking a sweat, so to speak. He didn’t sweat. 

“Go get him, or I swear, I—”

“You’ll what?” 

A change came over him, the anger draining away. In its place was a look of hooded eyelids and pouting lips. “I can make it worth your while. I can do things – you wouldn’t even imagine them. Come on, you’re a good-looking guy. I know you’ve got needs. We all do, right? So let me, you know, fulfill some of those. And if you bring that kid up here – that guy knows things I couldn’t dream of. Come on.” 

Castiel blinked slowly at Dean. He had been propositioned. That was unusual. 

“I do not have needs like that,” Castiel said. He had to work hard to keep his voice in its usual imposing, angelic timbre. 

This only made Dean leer harder. “Perfect excuse then. Come on. I can make it fun for you. Anything you can think of, I can do it.” 

Castiel felt abashment such as he had rarely felt in his entire time on Earth. Angelic intimacy was a completely different set of practices than what Dean was talking about. He wasn’t talking about intimacy at all, in fact, and someone who was far gone enough to proposition an angel was someone who could not comprehend, even if Castiel could find the words to break it down into ideas humans could understand. Dean was talking about _fucking_ , and angels simply did not do that. There were ways for graces to mingle, for angels to become closer to one another, but it was not the way humans or demons thought of sex. 

“I assure you that you cannot.” 

“You never know until you try.” 

“That will be enough,” Castiel said. The sky outside seemed to darken with the deep intonation, the air in the room becoming close. 

The leer slipped from Dean’s face and though he did not appear contrite, exactly, he did manage to at least look sort of sullen. Castiel would prefer that over the ugly leer, that aggressive look of sex. He had seen humans and demons alike levy such a look at one another, and it was never what an angel would think of as sexy. 

He wanted to release Dean, but he knew that he would not. He was worse off than they had anticipated, and to release him would do no one any good. 

Dean opened his mouth, presumably to try arguing some more, but Castiel was not having any of that. The boy had begun a transformation into demonhood, a process that was not easily reversed. Once again, Castiel chanted the Enochian prayer. He added an appeal to the Prince of Peace and His Mother, for if there were two things this creature needed, it was peace and Motherly intercession. 

He roared and cried out as Castiel said these prayers, writhed under the force of their purity. He moved in ways which no human could ever move, his back arching too far and his head being thrown back. His hands splayed against the wall, fingertips crooked, nails digging into the soft plaster walls. 

“Stop, please,” he gasped, his voice low and faint. 

“I am sorry, Dean. This is the only way.” 

He continued on like this for almost an hour. Castiel prayed and Dean resisted. The more he strained, the harder it became for Castiel to hold the bonds in place. Finally, with both exhausted, Castiel lunged toward Dean, extended his arm, and touched him briefly on the forehead. Dean stopped struggling, slumped down to the floor. His face appeared bruised, dark circles under his eyes and on his cheek, on the side of his mouth. 

Castiel lifted the fragile mock-up of Dean Winchester and laid it out on the bed. He passed his hands over the bruises. They disappeared, but he knew the boy would still be in great pain when he awoke. He would be in great pain for a long time to come. 

As a final measure, Castiel drew a demon trap above the bed. Better safe than sorry.  
***

He went out onto the porch, sat on the rotting steps. He prayed as hard as he could, harder than he had in a long time. Usually when he appeared, when he answered others’ prayers, people didn’t resist. Of course, he usually wasn’t rescuing people after their souls had begun to slowly barbecue, either.

The day was bright and sunny, warm but not too hot. Unusual for July, he thought. The heat or cold never bothered him, per se, but he noticed it, same as noticing he was wet if it rained. It felt good, though. His experience of sunshine was to feel every little atom and molecule, every tiny burst of energy that created warmth. To Castiel, these bits of energy were history, they were little motes that had been kicked up and up and then slowly sifted down. If he thought about it too hard, it left him in too much awe of his Father. 

He imagined humans all over the Northern hemisphere in lakes and rivers, swimming pools, ponds, or running through sprinklers. He wished that Dean could be among them, or laying on a couch somewhere drinking a beer – something. Anything other than recovering from Hell. 

Hours passed and the sun traveled from high in the sky down, down, down, eventually setting on the horizon. When it was a perfect half-disc of orange and red, he got up and went back inside.   
***  
Dean was not happy about the devil’s trap above the bed. He had awakened some time before, when the light outside was blue and dark and made his displeasure immediately known.

“Fuck you, you fucking prick! I’m not a fucking demon. Clean that shit off, you asshole.” If only he could hear his own snarling voice, could see the way his body was writhing underneath it. 

“Prove to me that I can, and I will.” 

Dean stilled, sat up on the bed. He smiled at Castiel. “Does that mean you want to take me up on my earlier offer? I wouldn’t mind, you know.” He raked his eyes up and down Castiel and back again, pausing at his crotch. 

Castiel rolled his eyes. If Dean knew of his true form and the genitalia attached there, he wouldn’t be so eager. The vessel that Castiel currently occupied was well endowed, by human standards. His wife had certainly never complained. But if Castiel showed his true form and attempted to engage in intercourse with Dean, Dean would be ripped to shreds. 

“No. That is not what I am saying.” 

Dean pouted and drew his knees up. Castiel didn’t have the heart to point out that if he didn’t need to be under the devil’s trap, he’d have been able to move off the bed.   
***

III.

It had been a week. A week of verbal assaults, propositions, vomiting, and general unpleasantness. Castiel kept up as best a face as he could manage when he was around Dean. But when he was alone, all he was able to do was sit on the dusty, abandoned couch in the sitting room. He slumped down, head resting on the back of the couch, legs splayed out before him.

He was taking one such moment when he looked out the window and saw Inias in the distance. He knew the general location of the farmhouse, but of course could not fully see it. So there he stood at the edge of the field where it lay, hands in his pockets, waiting for Castiel to notice. Castiel did, glancing up at the ceiling before departing. Dean still slept, and he was still contained by the devil’s trap. 

He alighted out for the field, appeared in front of Inias. 

“Castiel,” he said, warm but weary. He reached out and embraced him. 

“Inias,” he said in return, nodding, pulling him close. “I am glad to see you are alive.” 

“Barely. I was wounded, but I persevered.” 

“Hester? Uriel?” 

Inias nodded. “Both survived. How is the boy?” 

Castiel hesitated. He didn’t want to reveal too much, didn’t want an offer of help. He believed he was the one who could help Dean Winchester regain his health, and in another moment of vanity and pride, he was reticent to let that go.

“He’s quite far gone,” he admitted, “but I think we have made progress.” 

In this case, “progress” was defined as “less vomit and a slightly less nauseating stench,” but Castiel did not put too fine a point on it for Inias. 

“I can come help you, brother.” Oh, his needy little eyes looking up at Castiel, shining and so open. That vessel he had chosen was so gently debauched. He had that look of a thoughtful middle class man – boy, really. Perhaps someone who went to a good college and read a lot of Allen Ginsberg. 

“No, it’s quite all right,” Castiel said, resting his hand on Inias’ shoulder. “You should – should continue your own recuperation.”

“Yes, perhaps.” 

He narrowed his eyes at Castiel, opened his mouth for a question. Castiel silenced him by kissing him gently, placing his hands on Inias’ arms. 

“I will be fine here. Take care of yourself.” 

Inias stepped back, still skeptical, but he did not argue. He simply bade Castiel good-bye and disappeared into the afternoon ether. Castiel sighed with relief and went back into the house. 

Upon his return, a commotion upstairs shook dust from the rafters. He didn’t even think, just disappeared and reappeared right outside the door, unsure what to expect. That was an unusual sensation for him. Castiel could anticipate most outcomes. What he found when he opened it, though, surprised and unsettled him. All he could do was stand in the doorway, helpless and at a loss. 

Dean clearly no longer needed the devil’s trap. He was off the bed, pulling the sheets off. The pillows had already been sundered, lumpy stuffing lying on the floor like miniature storm clouds. The window had been broken, an angry shard sticking up like a knife. There had been a broken-down side table, and this was turned on its side, the drawer across the room. 

Dean himself looked every bit like a man who had wreaked such havoc. His knuckles bled and his shirt was soaked through with sweat. In his single-minded haste for destruction, his pajama pants were partially pulled down, revealing a sickly yellow-white wedge of skin, the side of his rear. 

“Dean?” Castiel asked. 

His voice snapped Dean out of this. He paused, the bed sheet in his hand, and turned. Castiel could see tears wiped away in grimy gray streaks, Dean’s eyes red and puffy. 

“Put me back down there,” he begged. “Please.” 

“No, Dean.” He stepped into the room, took the sheet from Dean. He waved his hand, and the bed was made, the pillows back together and stuffed with fresh filling. The glass was repaired, the end table turned upright, the drawer put back into place. 

“Why the fuck not?” Dean yelled, hands in the air. His face was red, a line of spit connecting his lips. 

“It is not God’s plan for you to languish in the Pit.” 

“Fuck God’s plan. If He wanted me back up here, He is even more fucked up than I thought.” 

Castiel had to physically work to compose himself. “Please do not blaspheme.” 

“Blasphemy? All this fucked up shit, and you’re worried about _blasphemy_? Dude, you have a non-existent sense of priorities.” 

“My priority is to serve God. Dean, please, sit down.” 

“Why the fuck—”

“Because I asked nicely, okay? I’m trying to be nice to you, Dean, and let me tell you – it’s really difficult.” 

Dean managed to laugh a little at that. He wiped his eyes and sat on the bed, Castiel following suit. 

“Are you going to vomit again?” 

“No,” he said, rubbing his eyes. 

“Very good. Look, Dean, my Superiors do not give me the whole scope of the plan. It would be true vanity for me to ask it. But I know that if their orders were for me to raise you from Perdition, then God’s will is for you to be raised. He does not falter, Dean.” 

“I wish I had your faith.” 

“It wouldn’t be easy, but it is a skill that one can learn,” Castiel said. 

“Don’t know about that,” Dean said, elbows on his knees, hands hanging slack between them. “I think this old dog is past his trick-learning prime.” 

“We’ll see,” he said, putting his arm around Dean. 

“I left that boy there. _You_ left him there.” 

“I’m sorry about your friend, Dean. I left a great many suffering souls that I wanted to help. But it was not my decision.” 

“That supposed to make me feel better?” 

“Maybe it’s supposed to make _me_ feel better.” 

Dean turned to look at him, nodded slowly. “Maybe.” He took a deep breath. “I’m hungry.” 

Castiel smiled. “Good. That’s good. What do you want?” 

“Fuck, I don’t know,” Dean said, running a hand through his hair. “I haven’t eaten in forty years.” 

“Well, whatever you want, I can get it for you.” 

Dean thought a long while. “Cheeseburger. I think I used to like those. When I was alive before. Yeah, cheeseburgers.” 

“You want fries with that?” Castiel asked, smiling a little, happy he could make a human joke. 

Dean laughed, smacked Castiel’s knee. “Yeah, sure.” 

The food, of course, was also a hologram. But it would be real to Dean, like his body was real, because that was how this had to go. He did not have the time to explain to this creature the specifics of the Spheres. So he snapped his fingers, and a greasy white paper bag containing a burger and fries appeared on the nightstand. Dean descended upon it like a seagull, tearing into the bag and pulling out the burger. He tore the wrapper off and ate it standing up before digging into the fries. Castiel thought, based on things he had observed of human behavior in the past, that Dean might have wanted to take some time to enjoy it, but he remained silent, watching the garish display. 

“Thank you so much,” Dean said around a mouthful of fries. “This is literally the best thing I’ve ever eaten.” 

That was true. Because it wasn’t real, and therefore not bound by laws of earthly physics, it was a sort of Platonic ideal of burger and fries. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Dean wiped his hands on his pants, stifled a burp, and sat back down on the bed. He got quiet again, introspective, played with a stray thread on the sheet. “I don’t deserve any of this. Do you know what I did down there?” 

Castiel nodded. They had been told that Dean whiled away his days torturing others. “We knew.” 

“But do you know some of the specifics? I mean, can you comprehend it?”

“Yes, Dean. I’m an angel. I can comprehend a great many things.” 

“Come on, man. You know that’s not what I was talking about.” 

They knew. Of course they did. They heard prayers coming up from the Pit, people asking to be saved from Dean Winchester’s knife. They had an operative down there, too, slinking around in the shadows, reporting on what went on. Their operative had told them that Dean Winchester went in on damnation with the same gusto he had used in life. He was efficient, angry, and creative. Some among their garrison had confided in Castiel that they were unsure he was fit for salvation, doubted he could even achieve it. 

“What was your choice?” He would not tell Dean any of these things that he knew. How could he?

“I could have held out longer,” Dean said. “I could have kept saying no. But I didn’t. I _broke_.” 

“You endured far more than many people could have.”

Dean kicked at the bedside table again. It wobbled dangerously but did not tip. “Whatever.”

Castiel wished he could tell Dean about his own soul, that it was unlike Castiel had ever seen. But that, he knew, would sound crazy, even by the impossible standards set forth in this situation. He settled for sighing and taking Dean’s hand. 

For a second, it seemed as though Dean would pull away. His head jerked up and his arm twitched. Castiel concentrated on looking at him with nothing more than angelic innocence. It wasn’t an invitation; it was a simple gesture. Dean sank into it, his hand lying on top of his leg like a dead fish. Castiel simply rested his own on it. He didn’t squeeze or lace their fingers together, simply held Dean’s hand. He wasn’t the betting sort, but he would have made an exception to wager that Dean’s life in Hell had been devoid of simple kindnesses. 

Castiel didn’t get to administer as much kindness as he would have liked. He was a warrior. He was there to smite and burn, not to hold hands with anyone. This felt far more to his liking. 

“Why aren’t you mad at me for what I did down there? I mean, in a couple centuries, I’d have been one of them. You’d have to kill me or whatever.” 

“It is not my place to be mad at you.”

Dean withdrew his hand, got up, paced around the dusty room. It was small, and it only took him a few strides to get to one end. “See, that’s the thing. Even if it’s not your place, that doesn’t mean you’re not mad at me.” 

“I’m not mad at you. You were under duress.” 

“That’s such a cop-out. For both of us.” He stood at the window, one arm crossed over his chest, the other bent so that he could worry at the side of his thumb. He shifted a little and the floorboards creaked. 

“What do you want me to say, Dean? That I’m mad at you? That I think it was wrong to torture people? Of course it was wrong. You know that. If you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t feel bad about it – and if I were to get mad at you, that would be the reason. Far more than anything you did after decades of torture.” 

He was acutely aware of his stillness as Dean paced, reached up and smacked his hand against the slanted dormer roof, kicked at a loose baseboard. He wondered what it was like, to be so full of emotion that it had to turn into physical movement. 

He had no answers for Dean. He truly was not mad at him, and even if he was, that hardly mattered. Of course, getting Dean to understand that would be a true miracle. 

***

IV.

“Is God mad at me?” 

They were sitting in the living room, playing cards, when Dean asked this. His current question was less a non sequitur and more of a thread of conversation that had been picked up again. This conversation had been going on in various permutations for a couple of days. Anger, why Castiel should be angry with Dean, why Dean should be back rotting in the Pit, why Dean was awful. It took quite a lot of Castiel’s angelic patience to refrain from telling Dean that he could forgive him for his transgressions in the Pit, but this Catholic emotional flagellation was wearing on his grace. 

“You’ll have to ask Him yourself.” He rose, straightened his jacket. “We could go for a walk. You could ask Him then.” 

“No, I—”

“Have somewhere else to be? Really insist on finishing this card game?” 

“Well, Hearts _is_ my favorite, next to poker.” He smiled a little, but it faded quickly. He stared down at the upturned wooden crate that served as a table. “Do you think He’d even answer?” 

“I do not know my Father’s mind.” 

Dean hesitated, but nodded in the end. Whether it was a desire for a change of scenery or a true call to prayer, Castiel did not know or care. It was simply a relief to see him walking and acting human, damaged and wilted though he was.

They abandoned their game and went outside. 

They could not go far, for the protective sigils on the house were short range. There was a small copse of trees at the edge of the field, though, that would be safe. It wasn’t a forest by any stretch of the imagination, but it had the darkness and feel of it. Castiel enjoyed places such as these, and he hoped the same would be true for Dean. He led them there, chattering while he walked, talking about mundane things – the buzzing of the insects and what they were saying, the way the rustling wind echoed the poetry of the Spheres. Dean sort of stared at him, sidelong, walking next to him and not saying anything in return. 

They reached the trees and Castiel sat on a felled log, patted the mossy bark and gestured for Dean to sit down. He slipped into prayer almost as soon as he sat; being near trees and insects and small creatures always brought him closer to his Father than anything else. It took him a minute to realize that Dean was sitting there, crossing and uncrossing his legs, resting his hands on the bark, then moving to rest them on his thighs. 

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said, extending his hand once again. “I am so used to praying alone or with others of my kind.” 

Dean took his hand, slightly less wary, but still with his own hand like an awkward fish. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and remained exactly as painfully coiled in on himself as he had been before. 

“I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone how to pray—”

“Mm-hmm,” Dean said, eyes still closed. 

“But I find that it works best if one actually relaxes.” 

“Nothing more relaxing than someone telling you to relax,” Dean said. 

Castiel allowed his grace to flow through him, through his fingertips, and into Dean’s hands. He thought of things that always calmed him, of cool, green places like this, or the particular silence associated with sunrise. He felt it when Dean finally relaxed, his muscles loosening, his soul burning more brightly. 

They sat this way for a good long while, in perfect stillness. Castiel sank into it enough to keep his mind on his own prayers, while still being attuned to Dean. For the most part, he wanted to make sure Dean was okay. Praying when one was recovering from such close, extended contact with demons was a shaky business at best. But there was that other part of it – the way Dean’s soul pulsed and shone blue as he prayed. Castiel could not hear him, for the prayers were directed solely to the Father, but he could see them. Dean’s light enveloped him, outshined the temporary body Castiel had made. 

Finally, the sun began to set and the air cooled. Dean gasped suddenly, broken from his trance, and nearly fell over the back of the log. Castiel caught him at the last minute, helped him to gain his balance once more. 

“I still don’t know if He’s mad at me.” 

“Mysterious ways,” Castiel reminded him. 

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Do you feel worse?” 

Dean raised an eyebrow. “No.” 

“Then it was an afternoon well-spent.”  
***

Dean changed after that. When a rage overtook him, he stopped and took a deep breath, collected himself. He asked Castiel to take him to the trees, and they prayed again. It calmed him and afterward, his soul shone that much brighter for it. Castiel was unsure how to tell him this, so he elected not to, figuring it best to let it be. 

Dean began to get antsy in the house. He took to pacing, which led him down to the basement, which led him to discover a cache of rusted tools that looked to be from the turn of the last century. Castiel observed this with amusement, standing in the doorway between the dining room and the living room, arms crossed and a small smile playing at his lips. It warmed him to see Dean doing something, to see him fixing up the sagging banister, tightening all the screws on the door hinges, oiling them, checking the doorknobs. 

Dean passed two days in this manner, scrutinizing every inch of the house and fixing it up. Castiel did not intercede, merely watched his charge. The toolbox clattered jovially as Dean set it down here or there. He cursed a blue streak as he worked, and the sound of it, of his consternation, left Castiel feeling like real progress had been made. He said endless prayers to his Father, grateful for whatever change had been brought about in Dean. 

Halfway through the third day, while Castiel perched on the sagging couch, Dean heaved the toolbox to the floor and crashed down next to him. 

“I think I got it all,” he said. “Doors, windows, baseboards, a few loose floorboards here and there, sinks. I tightened up all the bolts and screws and oiled what I could and checked all the pipes.” 

“Very good. Thank you, Dean,” Castiel said solemnly, even though no one had lived in this place since 1955, when the elder Mrs. Hal Cameron had died. Both her sons had been in Chicago, running a successful financial investment company, and neither ever found the time to settle the farm business. They figured, one day a land developer would want it and they could sell it for a sum beyond their wildest dreams. They were nearing their 90s, and no offers had ever come calling. Castiel thought he might tell them, after all this, that because angels had chosen their land as a place to heal a soul, the land was now blessed and would yield robust crops, but he was unsure if they deserved the information or not. Perhaps they had a great-grandchild who was more equal to the task. He made a mental note to research this. 

“I might take a look at the gutters tomorrow,” Dean said, nodding. 

Castiel did not point out that this wasn’t wise, considering Dean had no shoes and was still wearing only thin pajama pants. Castiel could have conjured some up, but he hesitated for fear of leading into a discussion of angelic metaphysics. Dean would never be able to understand that this place was real, he was really gone from Hell, Castiel was real, but that his body was not. Humans had trouble with that sort of thing. They were quite attached to their bodies and could not see the ephemeral nature of those constructions. He would get his body back, restored fully and just as he remembered it, but his soul still bore the lingering marks of all it had endured. A faint waft of sickness still rolled off of him and there was a dim red-orange glow to it. 

“Perhaps,” was all Castiel said. 

He suggested a card game in the meantime, which got a smile and nod from Dean. He wished for Dean to retain this simplicity, this ability to find joy in card games. He knew what the boy’s life had been like before his time in Hell, to say nothing of that terrible schism, and everything had always been so lamentably complicated for him. 

They played their card game, Dean humming a little tune to himself as he looked from his hand to the cards already laid out and made his tactical decisions. 

“I remembered pie the other day,” he said. “I hadn’t thought about pie in so long.” 

“Pie is one of your more interesting human comestibles.” 

Dean stared up at him blankly, and Castiel explained that was another word for food. 

“Whatever.” He slapped down a card. Castiel vaguely registered that it was a good card to put down and gave Dean the upper hand. 

“Would you like some pie?” 

Dean hesitated, raked the edge of a card along his chin, appeared truly confounded and conflicted regarding this question. 

“Where does the pie come from?” 

Castiel swallowed, took a deep breath, set down his own card – not a bad move in itself. He was surprisingly good at card games, he thought. 

“I have resources.” 

“You can make pie appear out of nowhere? Does it come from a bakery? Why can’t we go to the bakery?” 

“Why would we need to? We can sit here and finish the card game.” 

“Maybe I don’t want to.” Dean set down his cards, the dizzying red pattern on the back taunting Castiel. “Maybe I want to get out of here. Maybe I’m ready to go find – to go find—” At this, he stopped, eyes going blank, mouth slackening. Castiel saw it all there on his face. He was trying to remember something and he couldn’t. 

Castiel let his own countenance settle into his best approximation of angelic neutrality. He mustn’t let on what he knew, mustn’t interfere with Dean. He needed to remember Sam on his own time. 

“What was I saying?” Dean asked after a moment. 

“Pie,” Castiel said, making a pie appear on the table before him, complete with two forks. 

Dean’s face brightened as he inhaled the rich, sweet scent. He handed one fork to Castiel, kept one for himself, and dug into the pie, carving out a perfect forkful of crust and filling. Castiel watched this, somewhat mesmerized, before taking a bite himself.   
***

V. 

An evening storm rolled in, turning the sky a wounded green. The clouds rumbled and roiled with thunder. Castiel felt the electricity in the air, the pressure change, the crinkling atoms and ions. 

He sat on the sagging porch in an almost-rotted rocking chair that was perilously close to collapse. He had not heard the music of the Spheres since he had come to this place, and he craved the company of his brethren. The thunder was as close as he could get, for to one such as him, it took on a more melodic sound that humans couldn’t perceive. Dogs could, which was why it frightened them so badly. 

Dean came out onto the porch, rested his behind on the railing, turned his head to stare off into the clouds. Castiel felt a change in him, too, the same electric pressure change as the atmosphere. He knew it was a coincidence, but he braced himself nonetheless. Dean remained there in stillness and silence for a while. Then he cleared his throat. 

“I didn’t really remember things until now. I was too – I know I forgot a lot of it, and then coming back topside was – I don’t know. Traumatic, I guess.” 

Castiel nodded. 

“But I remember what I did down there. I remember that boy I left behind.” 

“I’m sorry, Dean.” 

“I know. I – I mean – if you’d brought him up here, who knows. He might have had some trouble readjusting, I guess.” 

“He was far more deteriorated than you,” Castiel said. 

He’d rather chop off his grace with a rusty blade than have this conversation, but he knew that wasn’t an option. They were here, they were stuck in it. 

“I still don’t think I belong here. I should be back down there. With that boy, with Alastair. That’s what I earned.” 

“Heaven thinks differently.” 

“Yeah, well,” he said, but there was no follow-up. 

A particularly dazzling bolt of lightning cut open the sky, and both turned their attention to it, far off in the distance. Even from where they were, they saw sparks fly up in its aftermath. The following thunder was all-encompassing, shaking the earth and sifting dust from the roof of the porch.

“I remember Sam,” Dean said, finally, and Castiel closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. “I remember leaving him. I said it was for him, so he could live. But I – it was selfish. I did it because I didn’t want to live without him. I never thought about how – how he’d have to live without me.” 

Castiel looked down at his shoes, or rather, his vessel’s shoes. He disliked having to wear shoes, but he did it because people tended to look at him strangely if he didn’t. While other people’s opinions didn’t matter to an Angel of the Lord, their acceptance of him as one of their own did, and that could not be achieved with bare feet, sadly. He wondered why humans looked down at their feet in times of stress or discomfort. Maybe it was to ensure that their feet were still there, on solid ground. Even though reality wasn’t what they thought it to be, Castiel understood the impulse. 

“Will I get to see him again? Sam, I mean.”

“Of course,” Castiel said, genuinely surprised as much by the question as the pained, forlorn way in which it was asked. 

“Part of me doesn’t think I should.” 

Castiel rocked back and forth in his chair, staring off to the distance. Purple-green clouds roiled along the horizon. Somewhere, there would be a tornado. 

Sam Winchester was as essential to the plan as Dean was. Castiel knew this and nothing more, no specifics, not Sam’s role or his fate. 

“You have to see him.” 

“Is that so? Why? Some – some – bullshit line about closure or togetherness or something?” 

Castiel sighed, closed his eyes, worked very hard to maintain a measured tone. “No, because it was written in the Spheres since before you were born. Since before your father or his father was born.”

“I – what?” He rose forward off the railing, knelt in front of Castiel. “What do you know?” 

“Only that. You two are a part of the plan. That is all I know.” 

“What plan?” 

Castiel put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I don’t know the full plan. But it is – it is – large-scale.”

He hoped his wards were as strong as his faith in them. Even revealing that there _was_ a plan was a violation; if anyone heard him, he would be cooked. 

Dean made an aggravated noise, let himself fall back on his behind, hands splayed out. He smacked the weathered wood of the porch. His foot came to rest close to Castiel’s, and like the heat or humidity of summer, he was acutely aware of the weight.

“I am sorry, Dean. I don’t know more than that.” Nothing he could explain in human terms, anyway. “I do know you will see Sam again, and that you have every right to do so. You _need_ to see him.” 

Dean appeared dejected, sitting there with his knees drawn up and his hands gripping his hair. There was so much more to be said and to be told, but this would have to do. Castiel had reached the end of his knowledge regarding human emotional needs. Finally, Dean nodded and stood up, paced the porch a couple of times. 

“Perhaps we could play cards?” Castiel asked, full of foolish hope. 

“No, I – I might just lay in the grass awhile.” 

Castiel thought of all the healing that had been achieved in the past couple of weeks. It was remarkable. When he had brought Dean to this place, he was full of rage and Hell. He’d have resisted or attacked Castiel for changing the subject, not having all the answers. 

He stripped his shirt off, tossed it on the railing, and followed with his pants, which he left on the steps. The gray-blue light filtering through the clouds made Dean look even more pale. Castiel burned with shame as, for the first time, he truly considered Dean’s body as well as his soul. Even though the shimmering visage before him wasn’t it, in the strictest sense of the word, it was an exact enough approximation. If he happened to see Dean naked after his body was restored, Castiel would see the same thing. And in seeing it, he was taken by the simple beauty of it, like a chunk of clay that has fallen and eroded into some beautiful shape without the aid of human hands. Dean was solid, square, the sort of man who looked like he could literally weather a storm. His body was not unlike his soul in that regard. Castiel marveled at him, his whole continued existence.

Dean lay in the grass, staring up at the clouds, uninhibited, unaware of the way Castiel had seen him. Castiel could no longer bear looking at him like this, in this weird light, so he fluttered out of sight from the porch and reappeared on the roof. The awning over the porch obscured his view of Dean, and he was able to watch the clouds and the storm’s progress without distraction. 

The rain finally started, first a few fat drops, and then a deluge. Castiel was immediately soaked through with warm summer rain. It was fragrant, having been a leftover tropical storm. The scent of rich flowers and sweet fruit lingered in the rain. The soil was so much richer there. 

And then he heard a triumphant cry. He stood on his perch and there was Dean, far below, running around naked in the yard, whooping and hollering. Castiel observed this from a distance, smiling a little, even as he made out the words Dean was yelling – which were direct insults to God the Father. Blasphemous though they were, he had faith in his Father’s ability to take guff from his petulant children, even one as colorful and inventive as Dean was with his insults. 

Then he stopped, his carefree demeanor turning to fear. He spun around, yelling, “Hello? Castiel? Cas! Cas?” 

He left the roof and reappeared on top of the porch steps. Dean ran up to him, one foot on the grass, one foot on the bottom step, hand clinging to the railing so tight that his knuckles were white. 

“I got carried away,” was all he said. 

“That’s fine,” Castiel said, determinedly ignoring Dean’s nakedness. 

“I – I’m all wet. My clothes—” He picked up his pants, came up onto the porch and plucked his shirt from where it had fallen. 

Castiel waved his hand and both Dean and his clothes were dried instantly. Dean looked down at himself then back up to Castiel. 

“Thanks,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m all – naked.” 

“I’ve seen so many of your kind naked,” Castiel said. It was true, and not a single one of them had ever mattered, until now. He had never taken notice of the human form except, like any other sensory perception, as a confirmation of the Father’s artistry. 

Lightning forked across the sky and thunder followed within seconds. Dean glanced up, nervous, as the porch shook. Castiel stared out at the storm while Dean dressed. If he had needed to sigh, he would have done so when Dean finished. As it stood, he knew it would be obvious and the only thing that frightened him more than these thoughts was the possibility of Dean sensing them.   
***

Later that night, long after Dean had gone back inside to sleep or pray or do whatever he did, Castiel was still sitting on the porch. He’d tracked the storm’s slow progress, the massive clouds roiling and bubbling their way toward the house. Now they were closer, a swirling funnel cloud gaining speed several miles out over the trees that surrounded this place. He knew it would touch down in the next field but would not touch them there. Still, the wind raged on and the trees were in a frenzy. 

Leaves and small branches started to fall from the trees and birds were nowhere to be found. Castiel sensed the changing pressure, a vague buzzing in his ears. He shifted in his seat. 

Then there were the sound of hurried steps, of the screen door slamming, of Dean gasping as he got to the porch. “Cas—”

“It won’t get here. It will be about a category two. It’ll tear up that field, probably.” 

“Can’t you stop it?” 

“I’ve never tried.” 

“Never tried to stop a tornado?” 

“My role within the Host is complicated, Dean, but making the weather more convenient for humans has never been one of my assignments.” 

“Well, fuck you, then. Geez.” The screen door slammed shut, then bounced open a little. A gust of wind caught it and blew it back, banging it against the house. 

Castiel sighed, got up. He went in the house and pulled the screen door shut, latched it. He left the main door open because he liked the rush of cool, humid wind. 

“I did not mean that to sound harsh.” 

Dean was aggressively sweeping the floor. “Well it did.” 

“I only meant to say that things like stopping tornadoes is not my place. I know humans have trouble understanding it.” 

“Yeah , we do. People get killed during those things. Houses get destroyed and businesses and schools—”

Castiel went to him, wrested the broom from his grip. Dean resisted at first, of course, pulling it back. Finally, he let it go and Castiel leaned it against the counter. 

“The storm won’t hurt you. It won’t hurt anyone. If we – the angels, I mean – interfered with things like weather, our ranks would be so busy with that, that the earth would be overrun with demons.”

“So why doesn’t God—”

“Making an angel isn’t like making a pie, Dean.” 

“Don’t bring pie into this.” 

“You know what it’s like to fight evil things. You know that it is a full-time endeavor, and even then you can’t get them all. We focus our resources where they are needed most. Our charge is to protect His creation as a whole.” 

Dean paced around the front room, looping around the sofa and table, the armchairs with stuffing spilling out onto the floor, eventually stopping to sit on the stairs. Castiel followed him here, leaned against the wall in front of him. 

“Do you know where Sam is? I mean, right now? At this moment?” 

Castiel shook his head. 

“He used to be afraid of storms. And you know, we weren’t really allowed to be scared. So if Dad was around and there was a storm, it just made it worse. I don’t know if he’s still scared of them. But if he’s in this area – I – I mean, this is silly, but I wish I could be there for him.” 

The simplicity of this love was so in line with the Spheres that Castiel’s vision went too bright for a moment. They had always known that the bond between these brothers was a rarity, but coming face-to-face with it in this brief statement reminded him why he tried to understand these funny creatures that he’d been sent to care for. 

A loud rap of thunder shook the house and Dean went whitish-green in the immediate flash of lightning that ensued, eyes darting around. “I’m not crazy about storms sometimes myself.” 

Castiel sat next to him, kept his arms on his knees, only let his shoulder touch Dean’s. The sexual propositions and epithets of a couple weeks before rang in his mind, swirling with his thoughts from earlier that bordered on impure. 

“It really is just science,” Castiel said. “Different types and temperatures of wind meeting. Different densities of clouds, of chemicals and elements.” 

“Wouldn’t figure you for a science type.” 

“Contrary to what most humans seem to think, science and spirituality can coexist. You just need to know where one stops and the other begins.” 

“I don’t even know where my own ass stops or begins at this point.” 

“That is – another matter.” 

Dean laughed a little, bumped his shoulder against Castiel’s. “You’re all right, man. If all angels are like you, I wouldn’t mind fighting evil sons-of-bitches with you guys.” 

Had he been able to blush, he might have done so. Complimenting an angel – particularly on a trait that did, in fact, set it apart from the Host – was an affront. They could be thanked, as they were merely the hands of God, so any gratitude went straight to Him. But compliments were another thing. 

The wind picked up outside, whistling between the cracks and gaps in doorframes and windows. Dean straightened up at this, looked around. From their vantage point, they could not see the storm. They could just see the back window, see the trees on the other side of the house at the other end of the little enclave whipping about in a frenzy. Castiel knew, because he could hear the particular tone of it, that the tornado had touched down. It was, as predicted, miles away. 

“Part of me wants to go look, and part of me thinks that would be the worst idea ever.” 

“Well, you only have a few minutes to decide.” 

Dean heaved himself up without preamble or warning, went to the front window. Castiel followed and stood by his side. He thought it was rather beautiful, of course. He could see it as individual particles. The human eye could not perceive it as he did. To Castiel, the motion of the funnel was such that it was like what a human might see when a dog chases its tail. The dog would still be discernible. So it was with the little bits of cloud and dirt that comprised a tornado. Dean grabbed his hand, reflexively, instinctively. Castiel allowed it, but did not move, did not squeeze his hand further, though truth be told, he wanted to so badly. 

The funnel disappeared in the same way it had come into being. They were left with a deafening stillness and the smell of rain and mud. The field across from where they were was, in fact, decimated. 

“I’m exhausted,” Dean said at length, laughing at himself with a yelp of surprise. 

He excused himself, went back to bed. Castiel went back onto the porch and sat back down in his rocking chair. He was uneasy, though, and rose again not too long after sitting down. He checked all the wards, particularly the ones that would shroud his brethren from the place. He re-drew some spots that looked faint, even though all were in tact. Once satisfied, he prayed to the Father for guidance. He prayed that he was doing the right thing and that his appreciation of this particular creation – Dean – did not tip over into lust. He prayed until he, too, was exhausted, in his own angelic way.   
***

VI. 

Castiel didn’t understand nightmares. He didn’t sleep, for one thing. He didn’t need to. But more than that, the angelic mind simply was not built for nightmares. They had experienced so much, in and out of time, in wars that happened in the corner of the human eye, and they were able to process it and experience it and forget it all at once. They had to. As long as there were demons, as long as the fate of the Father’s creation hung in the balance, they would fight. 

And demons didn’t fight clean, either. There were no Geneva conventions for them. If an angel got captured, “torture” was a pale approximation of what would happen to the poor creature. If an angel blade was not at hand, the demons had other ways to kill it – slowly, from the inside out. Castiel had never been captured, but he had lost many brothers and sisters to it. The demons made a point of keeping the communication among the Host and the afflicted open, so that they could all hear the screaming. 

If angels had nightmares, the world might already have burnt to ash. But alas, they did not. So, one night when Dean awoke screaming, Castiel was left in a panic, like a new father living through his child’s first fever. 

After that first week of snarling resistance, Dean had quieted down. Castiel had been lulled into complacence. He had let Dean clean and fix up the place, had played cards with him, had gotten him his favorite foods. He went to pray with him. He had thought, in his vanity, that this would suffice. That what Dean really needed was a vacation. 

The screams issuing from upstairs made Castiel’s grace buzz inside his vessel. Unlike the previous screams of a soul tortured to the brink of demonhood, these cries were anguished and human. Fear, sadness, desolation – all of it echoed throughout the house. 

Castiel rose from where he had been sitting. He moved to the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the banister, looking up to the landing and the hallway, unsure what to do. Millennia of living, of fighting for humans and watching them and saving them, and he was frozen. His grace wrapped itself around his vessel’s heart and the strange little organ fluttered in his chest. 

He went up the stairs, silent and curious. He paused at the landing, eyes trained on the closed bedroom door. Dean continued to yell and thrash around. Finally, there was a thump followed by the rattling of the door and the doorknob. 

Castiel rushed to it, found Dean standing there. His eyes were open, unblinking, unseeing. His hands were poised and ready to claw at the door. He paused only momentarily before clawing at Castiel, his frenzied mind making no distinction between him and the door that had previously been in front of him. A button from Castiel’s shirt went flinging off into the distance; he watched it bounce. 

He roused Dean from his nightmare sleep, shaking him hard. It took him a couple tries, and then Dean’s eyes snapped into focus. Rather than clawing at Castiel, his fingers relaxed minutely, only to curl into the fabric of his shirt. 

“This isn’t real,” he gasped. “They – he – put me here to trick me. I’m not – I’m still in Hell.” 

“No, Dean,” Castiel said, leading him back to the bed. 

Dean shook as he sat there, stared down at the floor. “Not real,” he muttered again and again. 

“It’s real, Dean. We’re in Illinois.” 

“How can we be? Is Illinois in Hell?” 

“No,” Castiel said, firm. “And neither are you.” 

“I know my body isn’t real. I feel – there’s something – I can’t explain it. And you, you can’t be real. Angels don’t exist.” 

“We do.” 

They went rounds and rounds on this topic, Castiel giving over to more and more guilt every time he skirted the issue of Dean’s body. It wasn’t a lie, of course. He didn’t lie – couldn’t do it properly. But it wasn’t the truth, either. He’d gone through things like this before. Humans couldn’t understand certain things. They were limited. They had blind spots. No matter how much you explained to them, even the simplest of truths would cause injuries. 

Castiel finally took his fingers, pressed them to the middle spot of Dean’s forehead. He slumped back into sleep, peaceful. He thought to himself that perhaps he ought to go downstairs, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk or appear down there. He could only sit in silent vigil on the edge of Dean’s bed until the sun rose, at which point, he went downstairs and sat on the couch. He knew Dean would be “freaked out” if he found him there. So he sat, listening for any movement.   
***

The next morning, Dean came down slowly, dazed. He stopped about halfway, tightened his grip on the banister. He looked as though he were deciding the viability of just staying in the bedroom. 

“Morning,” he said, finally deciding to come downstairs. 

“Good morning. A few more minutes, and it would have to be ‘good afternoon.’”

Dean sat on the couch, rested his elbows on his knees, stared down at the floor. “I know. I didn’t sleep too good after – after waking up.” 

“I should have considered—”

“That I’m too fucked up to be saved? Yeah, you should have.” 

Castiel cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “If you were trying to bring forth any latent skills in telepathy, it didn’t work.” 

“Look at you, making jokes. We’ll have you doing keg stands and other human shit in no time.” 

Castiel doubted that, but he didn’t say anything. 

Dean decided that the grassy area surrounding the farmhouse needed weeding, so he went outside – still in pajamas and no shoes – to attend to it. Castiel watched him from the window. His body shimmered in the sunlight, like the array of colors on bubbles or plastic. Castiel could only hope that Dean didn’t ask more questions or listen to any of his hunches.   
***

He’d tried so hard not to interfere with the process. He had faith in the strength of God, in the natural process of healing. Dean’s soul was a living thing in ways his body – either this confabulation or his “real” one – could never be. It was like an over-cultivated field or a tree that had had branches shorn off in a windstorm. With time, healing would come. But the nightmares kept on, his memories of Hell kept floating to the surface. 

A few nights later, he awoke and when Castiel managed to calm him, he sat back against the wall, knees drawn up, eyes a thousand miles away. 

“I did terrible things down there, Cas.” 

“You were under duress.” 

“I was terrible to you when I first got here.” 

“We were – inelegant in our rescue. I see that now.” 

He snorted. “I don’t know how else you could have done it. Shoulda just left me there.” 

“That’s not—” 

“God’s plan, I know.” 

Castiel was nearly bursting with the need to tell him all he knew. The final fight was coming, and Dean was to fight for the good of the Lord. He’d been preparing his whole life to smite the wicked, and without skirting blasphemy, Castiel thought that he would be as skillful as any angel. 

While Castiel was busy trying to come up with something that would soothe Dean, some words of wisdom – he had to have something, didn’t he, after all this time? – Dean began to talk. 

The story that poured out of him stopped Castiel cold, sitting perfectly still on the edge of the bed, his hands on his knees. 

Dean had tortured until he liked it, and after he got past liking it, he was simply numb to it. It was no longer pleasurable or upsetting; it merely _was_ and the screams of the damned meant nothing more to him than white noise, the sound of passing cars, wind through the trees. 

It was the pure, aching drudgery that truly broke him. That was what cut him loose from his humanity. For even when he was enjoying it, he was at least feeling something. If he could take satisfaction in inflicting pain on others, then he at least had some discernable human part to himself. And then, he said, after about three or four years, he just stopped feeling anything about it. 

In the months just before the angels came, though, he had found something that ignited a long lost sense of humanity in him. It was perverted and terrible, but it was real. He’d met a boy down there, and the boy looked just like his brother. Castiel listened patiently, evinced no reaction, even though inside, his mind buzzed with recriminations. He prayed for strength. 

“And then Alastair brought him to me. To torture. That’s the boy I left behind when you took me.” 

Castiel pulled him close, and for a moment, he resisted. He pushed against Castiel’s chest, tense in his arms, and then he just . . . let go. He sank against Castiel and fell into deep, exhausted sleep. 

He stayed there with Dean until the sun rose. Dean stirred, laid himself down, curled onto his side. Castiel laid his hands on Dean, prayed for his safety and peace, prayed that God would release him so he could do the important work that was his destiny.   
***

Castiel needed the succor of his brethren. He had begun to feel unmoored within himself, drifting and lost without the Music of the Spheres. He couldn’t reveal their location, but he could step away from the safety of the wards. 

While Dean slept, Castiel blinked over to the outside perimeter. He stepped over the line, the rushing world coming back to his ears in a glorious cacophony. He smiled, turned his face up to the sun and to his father’s love, said a brief prayer of thanks. 

He closed his mind off to only one channel – to Inias. 

He swooped down nearly immediately, looking radiant and beautiful. Castiel nearly wept. The human soul was beautiful, but to see one of his own after such a long absence made his grace dance around inside him. 

“Castiel,” Inias said, pulling him in and embracing him warmly. 

“Inias.” He stood there, unable to let go. 

“Is everything okay?” 

Castiel nodded, and then found himself sinking to the ground. He hadn’t thought it was possible for an angel to experience exhaustion, yet here he was. Inias sat next to him, held his hand. 

“Tell me about the Hosts, Inias.” 

“Oh. Well. What – what do you want to know?” 

“Anything. I don’t care.” 

“Are you sure—”

“Everything is fine,” Castiel assured him. “I simply – I needed a moment.” 

Inias still looked at him strangely, but he kept on. He told Castiel all about the goings-on in the garrison, and even though they weren’t good, per se, they were something. The news was rather terrible, in fact. Alastair had his best on the case, trying to get Dean back. There’d been attacks, possessions, destruction. Some of it had been honest attempts to locate Dean, and some of it had been conflagration for the sake of conflagration. At one point, keeping up their end of an ultimatum, they had set an orphanage on fire. 

“Perhaps I ought to—”

“Is he ready? Is he ready to fight with us? Could he support our brother’s grace?”   
Castiel looked down at his – at Jimmy Novak’s – hands. 

“We have the whole Host of Heaven at our disposal. Attend to what is important.” 

Castiel promised that he would. 

***

VII. 

If you had ever asked Castiel what he wanted, he would have said – without question, irony, or hesitation – that he wanted to serve God. That was the beginning, middle, and end of his existence. Whether it was fighting for God or healing the wounded or helping lost souls, it was all for God. There was no Castiel as such, as humans thought of themselves. Castiel was just a tiny cell in a huge body, one of many that comprised what the humans called “God.” But in millennia of existence, he had never thought of what kind of a life he’d have chosen for himself if a choice was possible. Which was why the long and languid summer days with Dean snuck up on him. 

It was a few days after the storm. The world around them had grown choking in its humid greenery, the plants swollen and plump with the dampness that came up from the very ground. Castiel had been sitting in his chair, watching Dean walk along the perimeter of the property, checking out the apple trees. It caught him by surprise, but he realized he was happy. Not in the “for the love of God and Heaven” kind of happy, but the kind that humans talked about. He was content. Dean’s soul was shining brighter and cleaner. He would soon be ready to be fully restored. After that, Castiel hoped he would be assigned to protect him. With the battles that were yet to come, Dean would need it. So would Sam. Castiel wanted to meet Sam, badly. He wanted to know the creature who had captured Dean’s love and attention so thoroughly. 

Dean came up to the porch, the hem of his shirt held up to make a small pouch for apples. The sun shined through him, and for a second, there was no difference between the sunlight, the body that Castiel had constructed for him, and the soul that incubated inside it. Castiel marveled at this, thanked God for letting him see this moment. Dean smiled broad and goofy like a little kid. 

“These aren’t half bad. I could bake my own pie.” 

“You could indeed,” Castiel said. 

Dean set the apples along the porch railing, one by one, each little fruit different. Some wobbled on uneven bottoms, others were bright pink and gold while others still were green. He picked one up and bit into it, a drip of juice running down his chin. He wiped it off and licked his fingers. 

“They might not even make it to pie stage,” Dean said, smiling around a mouthful of fruit. 

Castiel smiled a little at that, even though his mind was still stuck on the sight of Dean’s tongue, of his throat bobbing as he swallowed. In that moment, all he wanted was for all of time to march on in exactly this fashion, with Dean content, with no battles to fight or missions to answer. Sunshine, fertile earth, companionship – all of these were gifts that the Father gave so readily to humans and that angels never had any need for. In theory, they were above these things. And perhaps it was Castiel’s pride coming through again, but he concluded that these simple things were the greatest cause for wonder. Of all the things he’d seen, all the miracles and battles, these were the ones that had captured his attention so fully. 

He was happy. He missed the sounds of the Hosts, the constant thrum of the Spheres, the prayers of people all over the world in their multitude of languages. But the silence allowed him to hear the grass growing, the bugs crawling, and the birds sighing. It allowed him to feel the sunshine, to smell the pungent soil. He could smell each mineral and element individually. In all this, a blasphemous thought wended its way into his mind. 

_What if this was what he was meant to do? What if he was not meant to be a warrior?_ Peace suited him so much better. He was still sitting in his chair when he thought about this, even though the day had mostly passed and the gray-blue twilight of a cloudless summer day was on the horizon. 

Dean reached out and took Castiel’s hand into his own, turned it over, stared at the lines in his borrowed hand. 

“I remember something from Hell.” 

Castiel closed his fingers, wove them with Dean’s. 

“I remember a lot of things, unfortunately. But I remember the way you looked down there. You were – wow. I mean, that place is terrible. Filthy and stinks like nothing else. It’s dark and everything is ugly. Nothing grows there.”

Castiel nodded, remembering all too vividly the slimy blackened trees of the forest, the bones crunching underfoot. 

“But I remember all you angels. You had the outlines of people, but it was like a cutout on top of a bigger picture. And the bigger picture was—” he whistled low between his teeth, words insufficient. 

“Yes,” Castiel said. 

“You were just light. Not even human shaped. Just – light. Barely contained. And your voice was like a roar and a whole choir.” 

“I suppose that is as close an approximation as you can find.” 

“But here you are, and you’re this guy. You have a normal voice. You’ve got – I don’t know – hair and fingernails and everything, same as anyone else.” 

“It is a vessel.” 

“A human? You carjacked a human body?” 

“No, I asked and he acquiesced.” 

Dean sat back, let Castiel’s hand go. “Oh.” 

Castiel didn’t know what Dean’s intentions were, what he was getting at. 

“What – what did you think?” 

“I don’t know,” Dean confessed. “Nothing specific, I guess, just – I don’t know – like maybe it was an illusion.” 

“It is and it isn’t. Dean, there is no way I can make you understand the finer points of my physiology. Please, for once in your life, have some faith.” 

“I have faith. I have plenty of faith.” 

Castiel raised his eyebrows in a challenge, and Dean quieted down. 

“I’ve had so many whammies put on me. I can’t – it messes with me,” he said, running his hands through his hair until it stood up. 

Castiel swallowed, looked down at his – at Jimmy Novak’s – shoes. He was putting another “whammy” on Dean and he knew it. The thought nipped away at his happiness. Perhaps it was only right. Perhaps he had strayed, become vain. 

“Dean, trust in this: You are no longer in Hell. You are on a new journey. There are battles to come and you play a crucial role. Trust in that. Trust in God.” 

“I can’t say as trusting anyone ever got me anywhere, but you’re as close as I can get.” 

His grace crept around his vessel’s stomach, tightened and squeezed. He wished he could ask Inias or Hester or anyone. But he was on his own. It would compromise too many positions. So he waited a moment, suggested a game of cards, a couple of burgers. Dean forgot his misgivings, smiled and punched Castiel on the shoulder. He started talking about something, some human popular culture thing that Castiel didn’t understand. He didn’t care, simply sat back and listened to the gruff hills and valleys of Dean’s voice, the way he talked faster the more passionate he got, tripped over his words a little. After a while, he found himself smiling again. He was back to where he had started.   
***

And that was where pride reared its ugly head once more. It wasn’t until it was too late that Castiel saw it, but then, that was the nature of pride – of anything, really. He should have known that talking with Inias wouldn’t come consequence-free, should have known that he was on a secret mission not a damn sabbatical. 

It was the smell at first. He noticed the smell. Faint, brought in by the breeze. They were sitting on the porch, waiting for the sunset, when he first caught the scent. Close, but not too close. 

At first, he couldn’t place it. He thought maybe something had died under the house, or nearby. It had that metallic sweetness of rotten meat. He knew he’d smelled it before, but he couldn’t associate it with anything. Then, the wind kicked up and the pressure dropped a little, and he knew. 

Desperation, rot, despair, anguish, pain, anger, regret. 

It was Hell. There were demons nearby. 

He glanced over at Dean, tried to gauge whether or not he caught it too. But he was sitting there, head back, his mouth almost hitched into a smile. Castiel went back to gazing at the sky, tried to remain calm. It didn’t get any closer. Perhaps it was a fluke. Perhaps there was a demon out there on other business. 

The sun set, as it did every night, and there was no other sign of them. Castiel and Dean carried on their business as they always did in the evenings, and Dean went to bed without a single sign that he sensed anything amiss. 

Castiel reinforced every sigil, every ward, every symbol and squiggle he knew that would keep them hidden and safe. Some out of the way ones he did in his own – in Jimmy Novak’s own – blood. He prayed, too, prayed as hard as he had in a long time. He prayed for strength, guidance, anything. He prayed until his thoughts were just numb strings of words in all the languages that had ever been, and then kept going until it was a low continuous buzz inside Jimmy Novak’s stupid, weak skull. 

And then, sometime in the middle of the night when everything was perfectly still and Castiel had prayed himself into oblivion, screams started from Dean’s room. They were unlike anything Castiel had ever heard from a human. Castiel shot up from where he had been splayed out prostrate on the floor, up the stairs, and burst into Dean’s room. 

Dean had fallen from the bed and was contorted and tensed into a nearly impossible position. He was like a man possessed, but Castiel knew he was not. He went to him and shook him awake, but it didn’t do any good. Rather than coming to, he lashed out, struck Castiel hard, toppled him backward. He was in a rage, still asleep, yelling and flailing. Castiel finally quieted him down, got him to wake up and come to his senses long enough so that he could raise his fingers to the man’s forehead and put him down into deep, meditative sleep. 

Spending the rest of the night at the window, starting at every shadow and leaf that crossed his field of vision, he finally realized how damn foolish he had been. He had been prideful, selfish, and distrustful. He had lost his faith in his brethren and had thus lost his faith in God Himself. And now the whole mission was in grave peril of being compromised. For the first time in many thousands of years, Castiel didn’t know what to do.   
***

Dean woke the next morning confused and bleary. He stumbled out of his room and nearly tripped over Castiel, who had been sitting on the landing in a stupor since he left him only a few hours before. He had fallen into the closest thing an angel could feel to exhaustion, his mind a whirring mass of white noise. He’d been staring straight ahead with his eyes open, and as Dean nudged him with a foot, peering down at him, he was grateful that he’d caught himself in time. One thing he knew about humans – staring off into the distance with glassy eyes was frowned upon. 

“It was bad last night,” Dean said, sitting next to Castiel. 

“You remember?” 

Dean rubbed his hand across his chin. “I guess you could call it that. I remember – not even an image. Just – red and gray. And – and me screaming.” 

Castiel nodded in confirmation. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“There is no reason to apologize. You did nothing on purpose.” 

Dean didn’t respond for a long while. Instead, he sat there with his hands between his knees, staring at the far wall like the secrets of the universe were there. Which they sort of were, except he couldn’t see them, warded as they were and protected with angelic lock-downs. 

“They’re coming for me, aren’t they?” 

Castiel’s vision swam, expanding and contracting, his – or Jimmy Novak’s – stomach dropping. So much of this was built on half-truths and semi-lies that he asked himself if one more really made a difference. It was true that Castiel didn’t know for sure. It could just as easily have been a coincidence. But he knew better. The End was coming, the final battle as it had been foretold for millennia, and the time for coincidences was over.   
***  
VIII. 

True to form, Dean mobilized into hunter mode. Gone was the confused but carefree man he had become over the past weeks. Castiel nearly wept to see it, but his soul took on a hard shine like chrome almost immediately. It wasn’t a regression, exactly, but it was a change. A foolish part of Castiel had wished that he could heal the boy’s soul fully, that he could work with God’s creation to make him whole. 

Dean came to him immediately with tactical questions. He rushed down the stairs, pulled the toolbox he’d stashed by the door into the kitchen, slammed it down on the table. He emptied the drawers of knives and scissors.

How many did he think were there? 

How powerful were they? 

What should they do to stop them? 

Should they call the other angels? 

Castiel hesitated. He never hesitated. He received his orders, he executed them, and he was onto the next thing. He was good at tactical planning, too. He had been selected to lead this mission in the first place, after all. He knew when to slaughter and when to hole up in a building. 

“Cas? Castiel? Angel of the lord? Come on.” Dean snapped his fingers in front of Castiel’s face. 

He straightened, cocked his head. That was no way to treat an angel. 

“I got questions here, man. You have to help me.” 

“I don’t know how many there are,” Castiel said. “It was just a – a sense. A smell on the wind.” 

“Then you need to call your angel brigade and get them out here. We need to do recon.” 

“Dean, from the outset, you have failed to grasp your importance in this whole endeavor. You are key to this. I don’t know how, but I know that, and it is no exaggeration. I cannot call my brothers. I have shielded this place from their eyes, because you are so important that the demons will be ruthless in finding you.” 

He thought of Inias, the one he had seen last, the one who had the most compassion, the one who had been to this place twice. Had he been followed? Or had he been tortured? Castiel shut these thoughts from his mind, knowing that it was only the path to ruin if he were to consider them. 

This quieted Dean. He had been arranging what he had into two piles: sharp things and bludgeoning things. He wiped his hand on his pajama pants, the other hand rubbing the bridge of his nose. 

“When you say the end—”

“Revelations, Dean. Blood-red sun and Jesus coming back and everything that has been foretold. It has already begun.” 

Dean pulled out a rickety chair, sat down heavily. The legs wobbled as he did this, the chair creaking. He put his elbows on the table and ran his fingers through his hair. 

“What side am I supposed to be on? Is that foretold?” 

“Ours, of course,” Castiel said, kneeling at Dean’s side. He put his hand on Dean’s knee and Dean stared at it as though he had put an alien object on him – which, Castiel guessed, was sort of the case. But he eased into the touch, going so far as to put his hand over Castiel’s.

He was finished. The touch took him over the edge into total madness or lust or something. He didn’t know what, because until this moment, all he had felt for humans had been a vaguely condescending appreciation, the way one feels about a distant, hopelessly goofy cousin. But Dean’s hand was real in ways nothing had ever been. He had inhabited so many vessels over the years, ancient ancestors of Jimmy Novak’s. In their bodies, he had touched humans to heal the sick, to pull from harm, to answer prayers. He’d never touched anyone simply because he wanted to. What passed between him and Dean in that moment was carnal and human. 

“They can’t see the house,” he whispered, ignoring the crescendo in his – rather, Jimmy Novak’s – stomach. “It’s warded.” 

“I don’t want to go back.” 

“You won’t. I’ll – I’ll think of something.” 

“I mean, I don’t want to go back to the world, to – I want to stay here. I know that it isn’t – shit, it’s not real the way my old life was. I’m not. But I like it here.” 

Castiel pressed his lips to the back of Dean’s hand. The silence in the absence of the Host was, for once, comforting. No one knew he was here, feeling this. No one knew he was kneeling in front of a human and kissing his hand. Perhaps God knew, but if Castiel felt it, that meant God wanted him to. 

Didn’t it? 

Dean moved his hand, and for a moment Castiel was sure he would strike him, but instead, he put his palm on the side of his face. Jimmy Novak’s face, technically, not that it mattered. Jimmy Novak wasn’t home. Jimmy Novak was reliving the Christmas break in eighth grade when he got a Nintendo and beat Super Mario Brothers. As far as Jimmy Novak was concerned, it was the late 80s. He was playing hockey and was about to meet the woman who would become his wife. He had no idea about all this. As it should be. 

“Can we skip the part of the plan that involves me?” Dean asked. 

“No, we can’t. But I can at least promise you that I will be there with you through it.” 

Dean cleared his throat, got up from his chair. The legs scraped against the floor like fighting alley cats, and the sound set Castiel on edge.   
***

Their first attack came in a swarm of locusts. One moment, Dean and Castiel were sitting in the living room, distracting themselves with a hand of poker, the next, there was the insistent tapping thud of insects on glass. They congregated there until the last bits of light that had been shining through were obliterated. 

Dean rose slowly and went to the window, cards hanging loosely in his fingers. He stared out at the writhing mass that covered the window like chainmail, like undulating scales. Castiel called him back to the table, his voice a low and even whisper, the same tone he used with injured animals. 

It didn’t work right away and Dean remained standing at the window. 

“Ignore it,” Castiel said. 

“I can hear him breathing.” 

“It’s a trick, Dean. You know it is.” 

“He’s inside my head. I can hear him inside my head, like my own goddamn thoughts. Don’t tell me it’s a trick,” he said, turning to Castiel. He threw his cards on the ground and lunged across the room, hands flying outward, and without thinking, Castiel raised his hand and blasted him back across the room. He landed on the floor with a thump. 

The only sound in the aftermath was the buzzing and clicking of the locusts outside. It was an eon before anyone moved, Castiel sitting on the couch as though he were waiting for Dean to get back from the bathroom while Dean was still sitting on the floor, hands out behind him, knees crooked up and splayed wide. Then Castiel scrambled to his feet and went to him, pulled him up. 

“Don’t apologize,” Dean whispered, gripping Castiel’s arms to steady himself. 

He hadn’t said anything, of course, but he had been about to. He heeded Dean’s command, pursed his lips, and said nothing. 

The locusts were still buzzing on the window, and Castiel stood to face it. He placed his hands on the glass and closed his eyes. The bugs dropped dead onto the porch, and he waved his hand, making them disappear. 

He turned to Dean, then, placed his hands on either side of his head. Incanting in Enochian, he repeated a prayer over and over, asking for God’s help and Jesus’ intercession and Blessed Mother, too, for good measure. 

The air in the room got lighter and the sun seemed to shine more brightly. Dean inhaled as though he had just surfaced from cold water. 

“He’s gone.” 

“Damn right he is.”   
***

Dean didn’t want to sleep, of course, and Castiel couldn’t blame him. But after two days without it, two days of being confined to the house and unable to go further than the lowest porch step, he was snappish and irritable, lashing out at Castiel or the empty air or the door or whatever crossed him. 

Castiel finally persuaded him to allow angelic intervention, promising to remain close by. He pressed his fingertips to Dean’s forehead and he dropped instantly, snoring a little and curled in on himself. Castiel remained by his side, until the inevitable feverish thrashing, perspiration beading up on his brow. He woke him then. It had only been three hours. 

“I could smell him,” Dean said into the darkness. 

“It was only a dream. I did not smell him.” 

“It was real though. I guess you don’t know what it’s like.” 

“I do not,” Castiel confirmed. 

When the sun finally rose, Dean went with it. Much to Castiel’s dismay, he saw that Dean’s soul had lost a tiny increment of its shine.   
***

Dean fell asleep on accident later that day. Castiel had left him to check the wards on the house, and come back to find him stretched out on the couch, one foot dangling down to the floor, one arm crooked behind his head. Castiel looked down at him for a long while, unsure what to do, if he ought to wake him or move him or what. But then his eyes opened and he stared up at Castiel, cloudy and unfocused. He shifted into a sitting position. 

“It’s creepy when you do that.” 

Castiel didn’t say anything, just sat down next to him. “I’m sorry.” 

“Can we pray?” 

Finally, something he knew how to do. He nodded enthusiastically, and they joined hands. It felt different this time, like a tiny candle flicker of what the intimacy between angels felt like. It was charged but sexless, infused with a desire to know and understand, rather than to claim or be claimed. It was no wonder. Castiel had heard the prayers from the Pit, prayers of those on the rack and prayers of those who had come across Dean’s path in other contexts. His brutality and force were well-known. 

“If they kill me—”

“They won’t.” 

“Cas, I’ve been around the block enough to know that there are no guarantees, anywhere. If they kill me, where will I go?” 

“You’ll go to Heaven, of course you will.” In a rush of blind, unthinking emotion, he reached for Dean, pulled him close. At first, Dean didn’t respond. His arms hung limp at his sides and it was rather like holding a sack of grain. But then he reached up, returned the embrace, rested his forehead against Castiel’s shoulder. 

“If they kill me—”

“They won’t,” Castiel said again, sincerely wondering who he was trying to convince. Even as he said it, the words _this time_ hung in the air. He knew the score for hunters. Everyone did. 

“If they kill me,” Dean said, louder, insistent, defiant in his pragmatism turned fatalistic, “I won’t mind as much. Because – well. I just won’t mind.” 

He knew what Dean meant. It wasn’t a testament to sacrifice. 

“They’re not going to kill you,” Castiel said. 

Dean pulled away, nodded, stifled a yawn. “Stay with me?” 

“Of course.” 

He stretched out, feet dangling off one end of the couch, head in Castiel’s lap. Castiel ran his fingers through his short, bristly hair, worried his thumb along the soft curve of shoulder. Dean reached one hand over, rested it on Castiel’s knee. 

Castiel couldn’t say he felt nothing at all this, but he didn’t feel it the way humans felt. It was comforting, even under the circumstances, to have this closeness. But it was muted, detached, the way all his perceptions of human senses were. Dean was simultaneously nothing but a soul, and the aggregation of uncountable cells and molecules. He was red blood cells and individual hairs, tastebuds and dead skin, rods and cones. His soul meandered through all of this, delicate, precarious, and yet resilient. 

Dean slept a while in peace, and Castiel prayed fervently for guidance and safety. Or rather, he prayed for a solution that did not involve his brethren. He didn’t want to give up this little terrarium he had created, this boring safehouse. 

When the peace ended, it ended spectacularly, with Dean rising, eyes wide open and unseeing, arms flailing out and striking against Castiel. It was as violent as anything he’d seen in those first days when he brought Dean here, when he was half demon. He kicked over the coffee table, playing cards scattering to the floor. 

“He’s here,” Dean yelled, pounding at the side of his head with his fist. “He’s in here, and he’s never leaving. He’s telling me to come back to him. He’s reminding me how much I—”

Castiel didn’t even think; he put his palm to Dean’s forehead and shouted an Enochian cleansing rite. It was the best he could do to cast out the demon’s presence in Dean’s mind without damaging his temporary body. 

Dean almost crumpled to the floor, but Castiel caught him, dragged him over to the couch. He laid him down gently, positioned a pillow under his head. A glass of water appeared, and he put it to Dean’s lips. More liquid dripped down the side of his mouth than into it. He was neither asleep nor awake, eyes still open, but void of any recognition or even the fear that blazed in them moments ago. 

It was silent, inside and outside the farmhouse. Too silent. The air was still and no birds sang, no insects buzzed, no rodents scurried. All the ambient sounds were dead and gone. Castiel went to the window. Outside, it looked the same. The trees and grass were there. The field down the way that had been ravaged during the tornado was still an uprooted pile of dirt. But there was something cold about it, something false. He stared out at it, trying to parse it, until Dean stirred and asked for a burger.   
***

Prideful though he had been, Castiel had at least recognized that Alistair wouldn’t stop at simple mind tricks. There would be a real offensive. Half-expecting it wasn’t quite like expecting it, though. 

He had forgotten the reality of demons in these past weeks. He had allowed himself to be lulled into thinking they were someone else’s problem, that the wards on the house meant they could not come near this oasis at all. And so, of course, when he was reminded, it was that much more jarring. 

He looked out the window, and there they were. There were about a half dozen of them on the far end of the property, in the border between the house and the field next to it. They stood there, staring in the general vicinity of the house, unable to really perceive it. But they were good – they knew it was there. He could sense their power, could see that they were sniffing around and trying to find the place. It was just outside their reach, and they knew it. 

Dean was still asleep on the couch, as he had been for hours. No nightmares had awakened him, and Castiel – in another moment of pure foolishness – thought perhaps he would be spared. But when he considered the silence in the house, combined with the demons standing perfectly still and quiet outside the perimeter, he knew that it was less a victory and more a temporary reprieve. He shifted uneasily as he tried to think of what he would do. 

He turned away from the window, sat on the steps. If he only broke the angel wards, then others of his garrison would be able to come in and smite the foul creatures. But it would also leave them vulnerable to other parties, and Castiel did not trust his brethren’s understanding of human needs. They would barge in with light and spectacle – as he himself had done at the start of all this. It would damage Dean, he knew that now, and Dean needed to be strong for what was to come. 

And then there were those who did not even think that he needed time to heal. Some schools of thought among the Host dictated that a human body could be repaired, a soul shoved back inside it, and that the creature would be able to continue on, business as usual. Castiel knew better, and he would do anything he could to defend Dean from those among his brethren who would harm him in the name of healing him. 

When Castiel looked out the window a while later, the ranks of demons had swelled to more than a dozen. All of them stared with unseeing eyes at the house, perfectly still, quiet, waiting. He felt as though they could see him, as though they were staring directly at him. 

Outside, the day was golden, saturated with color. He could see each leaf, each rustling blade of grass. The sky was a rich, multi-layered blue that shimmered and flowed like liquid. He thought of Dean, laying in the grass. He would want to be out there, wouldn’t want to be inside this creaking, musty house. Castiel wanted to be out there. Weather like this brought him closer to his Father. 

Dean woke with a groan, sat up, shivered. “It’s cold.” 

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Castiel said, rising, moving slowly and deliberately over to Dean. 

“What?” He rose, met Castiel halfway, stood straight and tall, face-to-face. “They’re out there, aren’t they?” 

Castiel nodded. 

“How many? I may be rusty, but—”

He grabbed Dean’s arms, squeezed tighter than a human would have been able to. Dean hardly flinched, only the slightest indication that he felt anything shooting through his eyes. 

“You are not in any condition to fight.” 

_Don’t make me say it_ , Castiel thought. He couldn’t bring himself to articulate what Dean had figured out, that his physical presence wasn’t permanent, that his body as he knew it was still moldering in a grave not too far away. 

Dean swung wide, ready to punch Castiel. Of course, he saw it coming. He reached up without moving his head and grabbed Dean’s fist. He could have crushed it with little to no fanfare. 

“This has a limited number of outcomes, Dean. If you want any of them to be at all favorable, you need to follow my lead on this.” 

Dean hesitated. His fist pushed against Castiel’s palm, and Castiel pushed back. Finally, he let go. 

“What do you need me to do?” 

“Go back to sleep,” Castiel said, raising two fingers to Dean’s forehead. 

He went outside into the day. The sun beat down and still cast a rich glow on the verdant leaves and grass. But the temperature didn’t match. Castiel knew it was cold. A human would have been nearly freezing. 

As he moved, the demons straightened up. There were more of them now. And as he had suspected, they weren’t just cannon fodder. They were the ones Alistair groomed in his filthy compound, the ones he abused and trained until they were fierce torturers. Dean would have been one of them someday. 

“He’s ours,” one of them called out into the open field that surrounded the house. “He will fight for our side.” 

Castiel did not give the filth the satisfaction of a response. He stood as close to the perimeter as he dared. The protection from the wards only extended so far. Where he stood, they could perhaps sense him, but they could not see him. 

What he did next was a gamble. If it backfired, the wards would be broken, the demons would live, and Dean would be back on the road to becoming one of them. 

He stood still and said a quick, earnest prayer. He prayed he knew what he was doing, prayed he wasn’t being prideful. As he raised his hands and let his grace shine full force from within him, as he let the purifying light that was him and that he was flare out into the world, his vision swam. The light counteracted the cold, and the air began to warm. As his light poured out of him – out of Jimmy Novak – the last thing he saw was demons crumpling to the ground in smoldering heaps. 

As he fell to the ground himself, exhausted and aching, he still wasn’t sure if it had worked or not.   
***

IX. 

He awoke on the porch, laid out flat on his back, every muscle in his borrowed body aching. That had happened but a handful of times in long millennia. He sat up, legs splayed, arms dangling down. 

His fingertips were cold, and he held them in front of his face, marveling that it could even happen. Dim and vague in the long annals of memory, he remembered it happening once before, during a nameless battle, but he couldn’t remember when. It was funny – humans thought of him and his kind as immortal, but that wasn’t entirely the case. Angels were mortal. They could be killed. They would all die eventually, when their work was done and the Father released them from their service. They had their vulnerabilities. It seemed to him that they forgot them, though, perhaps buoyed by human misunderstanding. It was a shock to remember that taking on a dozen demons alone was enough to cause his grace to short-circuit. 

Dean sat in one of the rocking chairs, perched on the edge of the seat. He held his hands clasped together, resting against his mouth, his eyes staring far off into the distance. When he noticed Castiel had awakened, he tumbled to the floor, put one hand on his back, the other grasping his arm. 

“I thought you were dead,” Dean whispered, his voice torn apart. 

“No,” Castiel said. “I’m alive. Barely.” 

He grabbed Castiel in a bone-crushing hug, pulled him so close that had Castiel needed to breathe, he wouldn’t have been able to. He pulled back just enough to kiss Castiel, deep and fearful. It bore no resemblance to the lurid propositions when he first came. There was no wheedling or leering, no bartering. It was pure and honest. Castiel leaned into it, and when Dean opened his mouth, his tongue nudging Castiel’s lips, he allowed it entry.

He had never kissed a human like this. He had never wanted to. Perhaps he should have felt guilty, but he couldn’t. Dean appeared as both soul and body, shining through the flesh. It felt as intimate as anything he had ever done, the emotions between them rolling back and forth like fog. But it lacked the intensity of angelic coupling. That happened in the trenches, in moments of fury. It was hardly tender. This kiss was quiet, unobtrusive. If it hadn’t meant so much to him, he might have missed it. 

Dean parted from him, and Castiel felt it as a real loss. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back. He sat back hard, drew his knees up. 

“It’s fine. More than fine,” Castiel said, reaching out to take Dean’s hand. “I could still fight back if I needed to, you know.” 

“No, I shouldn’t have done that. You’re hurt and I’m – I’m not fit to take care of you, never mind take advantage of you.” 

“Dean, if you really feel like discussing this now, could you at least help me into the house?” 

“Oh God,” he said, scrambling to his feet, helping Castiel up. 

“Don’t blaspheme.” 

They lumbered into the house, Dean himself not operating on the sturdiest of legs. They collapsed onto the couch in an undignified heap. Angels didn’t feel fatigue the same way humans did, with sleep being a remedy, but in that moment, he wished they did. He never really lost consciousness like that, only in the face of trauma, such as his earlier blackout. Sitting there, shoulder and hip pressed together, he felt as somnolent as he ever had. 

“You didn’t take advantage of me.” 

“But your kind – you don’t – you know.” 

“A kiss is a long way from that,” Castiel pointed out. 

Dean shrugged. “I guess. Still. I shouldn’t – Anyway, thanks for saving my life. Again.” 

“Your life is worth something – whether you agree or not.” 

Dean looked away, staring at the streaked and worn closet door, gray with years of moisture. Castiel pulled him close, arm around his shoulder. Humans took so much. He didn’t know if it was their design or the ways in which they treated one another, ground themselves down to nothing. 

“What happens if I don’t eat?” Dean said after a while. 

“Right now? The state you’re in?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Technically you do not have to eat.”

“Okay. Because I know you couldn’t, like, make food magically appear right now.” 

“You are correct.” 

“And if you got hurt? Like, hurt worse? If I stabbed you or something?” 

“I would probably die. Please don’t stab me.” 

“I wasn’t going to.” 

Castiel slumped back, head on the back of the couch, feet splayed out in front of him, arms limp at his sides. Jimmy Novak, always a vague white noise in the back of his consciousness, like the sound of a streetlamp, was completely silent. That was most certainly for the best. 

“Don’t lay like that,” Dean admonished, rising to arrange him better. Head against the armrest, legs bent to allow his feet to remain on the couch, he wasn’t sure he fared any better, though no matter how he landed, he would be uncomfortable. “There has to be something I can do. To help you get better.” 

Castiel smiled and he hoped it looked enigmatic. “Just sit with me.” 

The truth was, there was a way. He could touch Dean’s soul, and he would be restored enough to begin healing. It was risky, though. It could undo the work he had spent weeks doing, the work he nearly died to protect. 

Still. Alastair might not give up so easily. A dozen dead minions might not be enough to get him to stop. They knew the general area now; they could mount a proper siege. 

He would do it, but only if he had to. Until then, he raised himself up enough onto his elbows, allowing Dean to sit. He laid his head against Dean’s thigh, as warm and firm as he would be in life. Without his grace, his mind ran wild with thoughts of what would happen when all this was over. With Dean’s soul nearly healed, they would be able to leave soon. He could restore Dean’s actual body, the one that lay in a grave not far away. There was a part of his mind, a frivolous corner of it, that thought he and Dean would be able to fight Lucifer together. He knew better, and yet he still thought these things. 

A warm hand – too perfect and uncallused to be real – reached down to stroke his hair. Underneath his head, Dean had stilled, held his breath. Castiel leaned back a little, looked up at Dean, caught his eye. He nodded a little bit, just enough permission to allow Dean to keep running his fingers through Castiel’s hair. For the first time in memory, he fell asleep.   
***  
X. 

He awoke to a blinding blue light. In his weakened state, it actually blinded him. He sat up, knees awkward, arm over his eyes to block it out. 

It coalesced into a woman. She emerged from it and it receded to become her. She was perfectly average – average height, build, nondescript hair that floundered between being brown or blond. He couldn’t tell. He supposed she was pretty, in a way. Dark gray suit, crisp white shirt. If he saw her pass, she would fade from his thoughts like a breeze. She seemed familiar, half-remembered. 

“Hello, Castiel,” she said. Her voice was as nondescript as the rest of her. 

“H-hello. How did you get here? You’re – you’re one of the Host.” 

She nodded. 

The room was dark, that gloaming gray-blue. Day, through a glass darkly. Dean lay behind him, legs splayed out, arm dangling down to the ground, head on the back of the couch. He looked like he was sleeping, except he was too still. Not dead. Just somehow frozen. 

Memories of the woman came back to him in a blurred rush. There was an office, brilliant white and cleaner than anything he had ever seen. Everything seemed to be made of glass, and he remembered thinking that he had been in a human vessel so long, he would smudge it with Jimmy Novak’s fingerprints. The woman was there, talking, laying out a plan. She said he would lead a small mission to Hell. They would retrieve the Righteous Man. Castiel would heal his soul. The house would be safe. The Righteous Man must be protected at all costs. 

“Naomi.” 

“That’s right.” She looked around the house, at this place that had come to mean Dean and humanity and some kind of home. He saw it through her eyes – shabby, grimy, tainted. Rusty nails stuck out in places; Dean’s bare footprints stood out in dusty relief on the floor. There was a half-finished poker game on the table. Under her scrutiny, he felt as though she had stumbled into a love nest of some kind and maybe she had. 

He stood, straightened. His shirt was untucked, ripped. His tie rested askew. For one of God’s own army, millennia old, he knew he looked like he’d been in a bar fight. Naomi regarded him with a kindly condescension, the way one might look at a beloved pet that can’t stop scooting its behind on the carpet. 

“We knew you would be able to heal him. Your methods are unorthodox but effective.” 

“Th-thank you.” 

She crossed the room and stood over Dean. He didn’t stir, and Castiel knew that he was not merely asleep. 

“It’s this particular touch that’s so remarkable,” she said, observing Dean the way one might a scientific specimen. “The body. They are so attached to their bodies. We write it off, because we don’t understand. But you do.” 

“I suppose I do. It seemed to make sense.” 

“Yes,” she murmured. For a moment, Castiel thought she might touch Dean, the body Castiel had recreated for him from damp earth and leaves, wood shavings and shards of glass. He had to hold his hands behind his back, fingernails digging into his borrowed wrist, to keep from lashing out at her with violence. 

Greed, lust, pride, maybe sloth. Gluttony, for the way he craved looking at Dean. Envy that he could never truly experience humanness with him. Wrath at those who hurt him and would continue to hurt him. Castiel had all his bases covered, and even though Naomi’s face remained a neutral mask of nondescript non-judgment, he knew she must have sensed it. In her presence – a reminder of what he was, truly – he could smell it all over himself. 

“We’ll take it from here,” she said. Her words were so crisp, so matter-of-fact, that somehow he assumed he was part of that – until she gave him a wide-eyed look that asked what he was even still doing there.

“Of course.” 

Protocol stated that he should report back to Heaven for his next orders. But he found himself rooted to the spot. He felt enough power inside him to complete the task, but he just wasn’t doing it. 

“Thank you so much for all your hard work,” she said. 

“Of course. Anything in the service of the Father.” 

She smiled that banal smile, her eyes like polished beach glass. Still, Castiel did not move from the spot. He couldn’t bring himself to leave Dean. 

And then, as suddenly as she appeared, she waved her hand. Against whatever will he might have had, Castiel felt himself propelled upward, shooting toward Heaven. 

As the light flooded the farmhouse, he squinted through it. The last image he registered before being transported back into that cold, white room was Dean Winchester’s surprised face. 

The Righteous Man had been saved.


End file.
